Rust, Rust and Rust

The Energysaver was one of Glowworm’s early efforts at a high efficiency boiler.  Like the ill fated Potterton Envoy and Baxi Barcelona, the Energysaver had the lifespan of a prawn sandwich.    Although manufacturers like Archie Kidd had perfected the art of condensing boilers decades earlier, the mass market British boiler industry left their designs to the last minute and used their loyal customer base as a test bed. 

Glowworm was snapped up by Vaillant (a leading German boiler manufacturer) over 5 years ago and the Energysaver model was quickly consigned to history and replaced by European designs.  Meanwhile, 5 or 6 years seems to be about the average lifespan before serious internal deterioration renders an Energysaver beyond economic repair.  A classic example of how ‘Green’ labelled products do not necessarily save the planet.

We now travel to Oxted Surrey, where we had been asked to provide a recommendation for a new boiler.

House in Oxted

Our customer had such a boiler and it was leaking.  Being in no mood to buy another boiler with a short lifespan, and due to the tight location within a kitchen unit, we suggested that a Worcester Ri series replacement would prove more reliable and long lived. 

New boiler in position

As usual, we provided a 5yr parts and labour warranty on the unit, and the primary component (heat exchanger) is covered by Bosch for 10 years.  Their only stipulation is that the boiler should be annually serviced.

Worcester Bosch have recently brought out a new range of floor standing boilers.  Designed to replace the inefficient Potterton Kingfisher, Ideal Mexico and other floor standing boilers of old, this new unit looks similar, and in most situations can be fitted directly in place of the original.

Our customer lived in a large house in Banstead, Surrey.  Being a retired doctor of engineering,  he knew his old 125,000 BTu Potterton Kingfisher was not going to last much longer, and rather liked the idea of swapping a 65% efficient boiler for a 91% efficient one.

New Worcester FS42 CDi during installation

He especially liked the idea of not having to relocate the boiler, or being told that a wall hung unit was the only viable option.

We recommended the new Worcester Greenstar FS42CDi, FS being short for floorstanding.  The new boiler is slightly more powerful than the old unit, but still uses less gas at full power, such is the value of condensing high efficiency Band A boilers.

We found that the gas supply from the meter was significantly undersized for the old boiler, suggesting it had never reached full output.  As a Gas Safe Registered business, Hot Water and Central Heating had to replace the gas supply pipe from the other end of the house with a new larger diameter copper pipe.

The flue arrangements for the old boiler involved a large 8″ vertical pipe passing through a single storey pitched roof and then running up the side of the building.  We proposed removing this and fitting a new room sealed flue system in a different position on the pitched roof.

Our roofer moving the flue outlets

Our partner roofing company made an excellent job of removing the old vertical flue equipment, sealing the old hole with matching tiles and creating a new outlet slightly further down the pitched roof, to meet Worcester Bosch exhaust distance requirements.

Old flue laid to rest

Our work also involved replacing and relocating some radiators in the hall area with our favourite Vogel & Noot panel radiators.

As per usual, the system was comprehensively Powerflushed and then dosed with Fernox F1 corrosion inhibitor.

Our customer was given a 5 year warranty on the new Worcester boiler, covering all parts and labour until 2014.

Finally, we received a glowing recommendation from the customer;

“We are pleased with the boiler and once again I repeat how I appreciated the quality of Tim’s plumbing work.  We will be happy to recommend your company to family and friends.  Do feel free to use this recommendation freely because as I said to you, I am very critical of the work of most of the tradesman that have worked in my house, so it is rather rare for me to be willing to recommend someone so freely”.   Dr W.

This unit replaced an old Ideal Standard cast iron boiler in a storage room.  The Ideal Standard WM series unit was a bit long in the tooth, and was probably only 65% efficient.

We specified a 12Kw Worcester Bosch Ri replacement, which can achieve an efficiency of over 90% when used on a like – for – like basis.

New boiler (insulation to pipework not applied when photo taken)

The Worcester was mounted in a similar position to the old unit, but first we had to brick up the large flue aperture remaining from the previous boiler. 

The next door neighbour had recently had their boiler replaced by another contractor, who had elected use cement instead of bricks!   Hope it was a very cheap job!

The scene outside

A new Honeywell radio thermostat, and a new two channel timer was installed.

New Honeywell Line-of-text heating and hot water programmer

As usual, the system was comprehensively power flushed and our customer benefits from a reasonably priced, quality installation, warranted by Worcester Bosch until April 2014.

Our customer had already fitted a Hot Water & Central Heating installed Hometronic system in his main residence, complete with an accumulator boosted hot and cold water system.

He has a beautiful wooden barn building, separate from the house, which he uses to work from home.

We discussed using a combination boiler and radiators, but the sloping eaves design of the barn and the various space constraints within meant that radiators would not be ideal.

The barn, having a roof room with a vaulted ceiling, gets very warm in the summer, so we recommended fitting a heat pump.

Historically, a heat pump has two speeds, on and off, which for a heating appliance is uneconomic, because the task is never quite the same every day (British weather being what it is!).

The Worcester Bosch air/air heat pump is the latest modulating design, manufactured by Bosch subsidiary IVT.   This means it can deliver a higher level of efficiency than earlier units.

The Worcester Bosch heatpump has two components, an internal fan assisted heating /cooling unit, which is very small,

Ground floor unit

and an outside unit containing a quiet fan.  The outside fan unit extracts latent heat from the outside air, by passing very large volumes of low temperature air across a heat exchanger.

Outside Bosch air 2 air

This low level latent heat – which can be extracted even in temperatures as low as   -12ºC – is forced through an electrically powered (variable rate) compressor and transmitted via a pair of small bore refrigerant pipes to the inside unit. 

The inside unit then gives up to 6kW of heating,

- using typically 2kW of energy you have paid for,

- and 4kW of latent heat from outside, which you have not paid for. 

In very warm weather the unit can work backwards, extracting heat from the inside unit and discharging it outside, cooling the office.

Generally speaking, electric heating is very expensive.  Conventional heaters use resistive elements (eg: night storage, electric fan heaters, immersion heaters etc) and the energy you put in, is what you get out.  So if you put in a 3kW heater, you will get 3kW of heat from it. 

The low temperature latent heat extracted from the air, once fed through the compressed and then uncompressed refrigerant, gives far more efficiency for your money.  If you put 2Kw into a Bosch air/air heatpump, you can expect to see around 6Kw output for most of the year, giving a Coefficient of Performance 0f 300%.  It sounds like an impossible ‘perpetual motion machine’, but the extra performance is coming from low temperature latent heat in the atmosphere.

Upstairs unit (grey cable is not part of our installation)

We fitted two of these units, one to each floor.  The two compact exterior units were mounted around the rear of the building, used as a garden storage area.

Our customer reports that he is very pleased with the installation, which was fitted in January 2009.

If you have a small open plan flat, conservatory or barn conversion, and would like cheap running costs comparable or less than Natural Gas fired heating, together with air cooling in the summer, this may be what you need!

Our customer lives in Oxted, Surrey, and had an Ideal combination boiler initially installed under the Warmfront scheme around 7 years ago.

Not uncommonly for this model, a plethora of parts had been fitted over the years to try to keep it working, but without any success.  Some of the old parts were still on site.

We recommended fitting a new Worcester Bosch Greenstar 28i Junior condensing combination boiler.

Worcester Bosch Greenstar safely installed in cupboard

This new unit easily fitted inside the old boiler cupboard, and was considerably quieter than its predecessor.

This was quite an easy job (makes a change) because all the pipework was in good order and there was a nearby drain (needed for a condensing boiler).
We ran the new condense drain in 32mm tube, as this is recommended by Worcester Bosch for outdoor applications to prevent freezing, which commonly occurs in bad weather when normal 21mm pipe is used.  If you have a Bosch boiler displaying ‘EA’ in freezing weather, you can bet it is a blocked drain……

We fitted a Bosch plume diversion kit to the flue, to direct the steam (called plume) from the low eaves area and thus preventing damage from plolonged exposure to damp.

Just inside the eaves - new flue and plume extension

As usual, the warranty was extended to 5 yrs, covering our customer for any breakdowns until 2014, using the 320 strong (at last count) Worcester service force.

Completed in early April 2009, this customer’s house, on the Sanderstead/Purley borders (Surrey, UK) had an aged Potterton boiler removed and changed for a new wall hung Worcester Bosch 24Ri.

Who left that van there?

The new boiler was a third of the size and weight of the old unit, but had exactly the same power output.

The old cast iron unit had been very reliable, but extremely wasteful of gas.  Old floorstanding cast iron units rarely give an efficiency of greater than 65%. 

A new high efficiency boiler will achieve around 90% efficiency.

In other words, comparing the old boiler to the new one, for every £1.00 you spend on gas, 25p is immediately lost, forever.

And of course, if you are using less gas, your household emissions will lower, and there will be considerably more gas left for everyone else.

Inside the utility room

The only losers are the people selling you the energy in the first place…….. 

Getting back to our installation picture file, the old boiler had an enormous balanced flue which we painstakingly bricked up to match the existing….. if you look closely you may be able to see.

Completed job, spot the brickwork remedial work

Our customer’s boiler is warranted through our preferential arrangement with Worcester Bosch, until April 2014.

The house, located in Smallfield, near Gatwick, had a conventional heating system with a copper cylinder, water tank etc.  The old boiler had been mounted in a bedroom cupboard, which is always best avoided for noise reasons.

You can just see the new boiler flue on the roofline......

We fitted a new Worcester Bosch Greenstar 37CDi combination boiler in the loft space, on a custom made partition.

New 37Kw boiler mounted in loftspace

The Worcester boiler has a high hot water flow rate, which uses over 37Kw of power.  This necessitated a new gas pipe, which we connected via the existing external recessed meter housing and routed into the loft space.

We're pointing at our new gas connection

The new boiler system rendered the hot water cylinder and tanks redundant, leaving some useful space under the stairs for a cupboard.

New coats cupboard in the making (HW cylinder was located here)

Finally, we fitted the excellent Honeywell CM927 wireless thermostat unit to control the heating in the house.

Honeywell CM927 room thermostat

This house was in great internal condition with white carpets everywhere – heating installers hate white carpets!  But the owners made our chores a pleasure, even putting some of their own dust sheets down before we arrived!

There was a time when a backboiler (a gas fire with a hidden cast iron central heating boiler hidden inside the fireplace) was the height of fashion.

Unfortunately, the front fires now look dated, but more importantly, the bit at the back is usually only 60%-65% efficient in its use of your expensive gas.

Our customer in Pembury (near Tunbridge Wells, Kent) had decided it was time to invest in a new energy efficient boiler, and from the 3 quotes, he chose Hot Water & Central Heating for the task.

The boiler was to be moved from the lounge to a utility room area, in the process of being refurbished.

We suggested the Worcester Bosch 18Ri conventional boiler, which has an efficiency of over 90%, and comes with a full 5 year warranty when fitted by Hot Water & Central Heating.

The new boiler

The Worcester 18Ri has a depth of only 280mm, meaning that it will fit in a standard wall cupboard – which is handy, because our customer will be having new units on this wall.   The boiler will be completely hidden when renovations are completed.

In this case, we were fortunate to have the boiler on an outside wall, which made fitting so much simpler.

New boiler location, from the outside, showing neat flue outlet

The house, located in leafy Caterham, Surrey, was built in the early 60s and was heated by a warm air ducted system.  In common with many installations of this period, some rooms had no direct ducting and relied on leaving the doors open. 

The subject of this post

Our customer wished to use the large cupboard currently occupied by the warm air system for storage.  They also wanted a mains pressure delivery of hot and cold water, and minimum wastful stored hot water.

Warm air cupboard after removal of old heater, new pipes shown

We suggested the new Worcester Bosch Highflow 440CDi.  This is a floor mounted unit, recently updated from the Highflow 440.  With identical dimensions to a washing machine, the new Highflow has a new control panel and has more flexible flue outlet arrangements.

Worcester Bosch Highflow 440CDi - nearly completed

The Highflow 440 incorporates a small internal unvented store of hot water, which enables it to deliver up to 20 litres of hot water a minute.  Being able to be sited under a worktop, it is a very neat space efficient solution.

Finished!

It is always difficult fitting radiators in a property formerly fitted with warm air, because there are pipes to run.  In this property there was a solid ground floor, but we found ways to minimise the visual impact of pipe runs.

Vogel & Noot Vienna Line radiator

Our customer agreed to specify our preferred Vogel and Noot radiators, which have a modern neat panelled appearance.  The single panel versions fit very close to the wall indeed, minimising visual impact in the room.  Honeywell radiator valves were used throughout, as usual.

Pipework can often be hidden on the other side of the wall

The new Highflow 440 CDi can be used with the Worcester outside plume management kit, which we fitted to take the flue output to a satisfactory high level discharge point, where it was unlikely to be a nuisance.

The new plume management kit now available on the 440CDi comes in useful here! That's a lot of steam.

The hot water cylinder and water tanks were removed, the Worcester Highflow now manages the supply of heating and hot water for the entire property singlehanded.

As a Worcester A+ installer, our customer enjoys a 5 year parts and labour warranty on his new boiler.  Our experience with previous Worcester Highflow models suggests he is unlikely to need it, but nevertheless it is covered until 2014!

This customer had a very old Worcester combi in their petite kitchen, in a rural location near Merstham, Surrey.

The old boiler had been installed with the flue too close to a window, and in addition some leakage had resulted in damage to the floor.

The old boiler with the casing removed

We suggested relocating the new replacement outside, so more space could be liberated in the house.  Also it meant that the boiler flue ‘plume’ would not be immediately under the kitchen view of the garden.

A new Worcester Bosch Greenstar oil combination boiler was fitted on a concrete plinth under an old carport, to the side of the building.

Our professional roofing contractor made the roof weathertight around the flue.

Finished article, (and Tim, our technical manager).

Our customers could now enjoy a larger kitchen, which is now being refitted, and a more efficient boiler.

As a Worcester accredited installer, our customer has a 5 year parts and labour warranty on the boiler.

New boiler being commissioned

Exterior boiler module and roof flue system