A white Ideal combi, hung on a wall that has not been painted yet.
The room was mid refurbishment when this was taken, which is why the plaster is bare, and we would rather show you the job as it was than wait for the decorator and pretend the wall was always finished. A photograph that has been tidied up tells you nothing. This one tells you quite a lot.
In the frame
Under the boiler the copper drops down in parallel runs, each one clipped to the wall, with brass isolating valves on the runs and a black system filter sitting on the pipework. The white pipe is the condensate, carrying the water a condensing boiler produces away to a drain. Over to the left are the wireless receiver for the thermostat and the fused spur the boiler is wired to, which is the electrical side of the job and the reason it helps that the same firm carries both trades. Nothing here is hidden behind boxing yet, so you can see exactly what was done.
Straight runs
Pipework clipped straight is not about looks, or not only about looks.
A run that is supported along its length is not hanging its own weight off the joints, so the joints stay tight. A run that is straight and clipped does not knock or tick when the heating comes on and the copper warms up. And a run where you can see where every pipe goes is a run the next person can work on without guessing, whether that is us in a few years or somebody else. It is also the first thing anyone who knows the trade looks at when they walk into a room, because it tells them whether the parts they cannot see were done with the same care.
The filter
The black cylinder on the pipework is a system filter. Its job is to catch the black sludge that builds up inside a heating system before that sludge reaches the new boiler and settles in the heat exchanger. On a replacement we flush the system so the new unit is not fed a decade of what was in the old one, and the filter is what keeps it that way afterwards. Round here the water is hard and it is hard on boilers, so anything that keeps the inside of the system clean is protecting the thing you have just paid for.
Isolators
The brass valves are isolating valves. They mean the boiler can be shut off on its own, without draining the system down, if it ever needs work. The person who benefits is not us on the day, it is whoever comes to service or repair it next, and that is the sort of thing you only notice when it is missing.
The whole job
A boiler replacement is the whole job or it is not worth doing. The old unit comes out. The new one goes in, on a wall that can take it, with the flue where it is allowed to go. The system gets flushed so the new heat exchanger is not fed years of black sludge out of the old pipework. The filter goes on. The isolators go on. The pipework gets clipped in straight runs so it stays where it was put. The controls get set up and explained, because a new boiler running on a controller nobody understands is half a job. And everything is left working before we go, not left for the decorator to find. This one was photographed before the walls were finished because that is when the work was done, and if the customer sends us a picture with the room painted we will put it next to this one. Until then, bare plaster and straight copper is an honest picture of a boiler install, and we are happy for it to be the one you see first.
Ring 07546 185778 if yours is losing pressure, locking out, or just old, and we will tell you honestly whether it wants repairing or replacing, in writing, before anything is agreed.
