It was late when we finished

He had considered a solar hot water system in the loft, as he wanted to minimise his family impact on the environment;  with solar hot water it is important to maximise the hot water storage, or you quickly run out of solar heated water and have to use the boiler.

Unfortunately, the design of these properties leaves a low headroom in the loft, restricting the size of cylinder, and there is limited weight capacity for large volumes of water.

So, instead, he decided to fit the Vaillant ecoTEC+ 937 hybrid combination boiler.  The wall hung unit comprises an 837 combi with a set of hot water storage tanks built in a pod at the back.  This makes the boiler quite large and heavy (getting on for the size of a washing machine), but it delivers a superb performance of 20 litres per min for the first 200 litres of drawoff.

We fitted the new boiler on the brick gable wall and used a vertical flue system.  Five new radiators were also supplied and fitted, and we were fortunate to be able to use some existing ductwork from a warm air installation to hide most of the pipework.

New Vaillant 937 in the loft

The Vaillant 937 is a good alternative to an unvented cylinder and boiler in a medium sized house, because it takes up relatively little space.  Other similar solutions offered by Hot Water & Central Heating include the Worcester Highflow CDi range.

Period house in Warlingham, Surrey

Our client has a woodworking business and was constructing an imaginative barn type conversion for their property, with lots of oak beams in an unusual semi circular design.

Firstly, we installed a Heritage Cooker in the existing kitchen.  Fitted with brass trim and a Jade Green enamelled finish, it was also specified with body colour hotplate covers.

Heritage Cooker

This particular Heritage Cooker was a gas fired unit, most of the Heritages we fit are oil fired in very rural locations.

In common with all 3 oven Heritage units, the control panel concealed behind the upper left hand door enables the unit to be timed according to the user requirements. 

Showing hidden control panel

From cold, the Heritage is ready for cooking in as little as 25 minutes.  Try telling this to an AGA owner and they start getting very defensive.  Especially in the summer when their cooker is making the kichen intolerably hot and using completely unnecessary amounts of fuel!

An old Potterton boiler and associated hot water cylinder was removed, and a new Vaillant ecoTEC+ 937 hybrid combination boiler was installed in the extension, together with a new water main.

Vaillant 937

We have fitted lots of this model over the past 18 months.  ecoTEC937 uses a buffer store of preheated hot water, to give a performance of around 200 litres of hot in the first 10 minutes, all from a (large) wall hung boiler.  This is a boiler that is a viable alternative for a small unvented cylinder installation for water delivery, if there is only 25 litres per minute coming in the property.

Separate circuits were installed for the underfloor heating system in the extension and the main radiators in the house.

Underfloor heating and radio controls

The underfloor heating manifold (and electrical consumer unit above) will be concealed inside a larder kitchen unit later in the project.

The underfloor heating is fitted with the OJ electronics radio thermostat system, so our customer has 4 zones of independently controllable underfloor heating, plus a separately timed and programmable radiator system, giving 5 addressable zones of heating in the house.

All ready for Christmas 2008, and the floor tiler!

The old Ferroli combination boiler was past it’s best and had been built into a rather ugly wooden housing about 2 feet from the corner of the kitchen, conveniently preventing a line of shiney new kitchen units from being installed.

The siting of the old boiler had been necessary because it used the old ‘balanced flue’ type termination, which involves an outside termination to British Standards, avoiding two windows.  At it happens, the boiler flue termination was too close to the kitchen window anyway.

New boiler being installed

We fitted a new Vaillant ecoTEC Plus 831 combination boiler.  These can be fitted with a small diverter pipe outside to lead the flue gases to a higher level, leaving just the air inlet for the boiler near to the window.  Vaillant allow such installations to get as close as 75mm to an opening window, significantly increasing installation flexibility.

We were able to turn the boiler through 90 degrees from the old position (you can see the old rectangular flue aperture in the picture, denoting the old boiler position), enabling our customer to install a lovely new kitchen with wall units all along the right hand wall.

The boiler was connected to the Powerflushed pipework and radiators, which although 30 years old, were in excellent condition.

Powerflushing is perhaps amongst the most dull jobs in the World, but a clean system makes boilers last longer and more reliably.  With our 5 year manufacturer warranty, this installation will be going strong for many years.

HWCH were asked to suggest a new gas central heating system design, to replace the existing electrical heating system.

A Vaillant ecoTEC 837 fast flow combination boiler was sited in the loft; as no suitable locations existed, we constructed a frame with a fire resistant lining to support the boiler and accessories.

The boiler flue was passed through the pitched roof, all external works as usual were entrusted to our specialist roofing contractor.

The job included 10 Vogel & Noot radiators, and the new Vaillant VRC430 weather compensation system.

We are great believers in the principle of weather compensation; that is, changing the temperature of the radiators according to external weather conditions to the lowest possible. The simple benefit of such a system is that your boiler is always working in the highest efficiency band possible, so you use the minimum amout of fuel – and give off the least emissions.

A properly installed Weather Compensation system does not lower the room temperatures from optimum, so there is no trade off in comfort terms.

We just wish the manufacturers would make it easier for homeowners to understand!

The new Vaillant VRC430 is a huge improvement on their previous controller (VRC400) in this respect.

As a footnote, we have subsequently received very nice letter from our client – a copy of which is available in our office for inspection!