A plume kit on a boiler flue, taking the steam up the outside wall instead of letting it out at the flue.
What is a boiler plume kit?
A plume kit is a pipe that fits onto a condensing boiler’s flue terminal and carries the white plume of water vapour away, up the wall or round a corner, to a point where it clears. It is made by the boiler’s maker for that flue, and London City Plumbers arranges it with the gas engineers we work with.
The photograph is the outside wall, looking up the ladder. The black plume pipe leaves the brick at a round collar where the flue comes through, runs straight up the wall and stops at the eaves, beside the black downpipe.
What a plume kit does
A condensing boiler puts out a white plume of water vapour through its flue, most of all on a cold morning. Where the flue comes through the wall near a path, a window, a door or the boundary, that plume drifts straight into it, and the rules on where a flue may end take that into account. A plume kit, also called a plume management kit, fits onto the flue terminal and carries the vapour away through its own pipe, up the wall, round a corner or above the roofline, to a point where it can clear. The kit is the boiler maker’s own, made for that flue, and its length and its bends are kept inside what the maker allows. On the outside it is a slim pipe, often black or white, clipped to the brickwork, with its own small terminal at the end. The plume kit is part of the boiler’s flue, so it is something we arrange. Gas work is carried out by Gas Safe registered engineers we work with. They show you their Gas Safe ID card, and any certificate for the work comes from them.
That is a boiler plume kit, and a flue plume kit is the same thing.
When a flue needs one
A flue that ends under a window, close to a door, beside a path people use or near the boundary with next door is the usual reason. So is a flue that faces a neighbour’s wall or garden, where the plume would roll straight across it.
The pipe is clipped to the wall along its run and pitched so the water that condenses inside it runs back.
Up the wall
Here the plume pipe runs straight up the brick and stops at the eaves.
Black suits the dark brick and the black downpipe beside it, and there is a round patch in the brick just below the collar.
On a cold morning that is the difference between a cloud of steam at the flue and a thin plume clearing the top of the wall.
Flues we have done
We wrote up a new boiler flue through the wall and a combi boiler on a bare wall before, and our boiler installations page covers new boilers.
Ring 07546 185778 and say where the flue comes out, and send a photograph of the outside wall if you can.
