Why you should make sure you have the Right Engineer with the Correct Training for the Job.
A recent customer wasn’t happy, and understandably so, that after spending a lot of money on new boiler and system upgrades with another engineer, the under floor heating in his conservatory didn’t work! There were so many system issues it was unreal!!!!
System issues In a nutshell
- The magnetic filter installed on system bypass pipework was not protecting the system from debris.
- The supply pipework to the underfloor heating was undersized (15mm).
- The Under Floor Heating circuits had been combined to make one massive loop! 180metres of 12mm pipework with no additional pump! The system water did not have enough flow to overcome the pipework resistance.
- No mixer valve to Under Floor Heating so floor temperatures would get excessive and damage the floor.
- The control strategy was incorrect and the customer had to have the radiators on permanently to be able to even use the Under Floor Heating instead of having independent control.
- Unvented cylinder discharge was undersized and terminated pointlessly into a condensate pump then into a water stack! Why not just straight into waste?!?
- The system water had poor water quality and a header tank full of bacteria
All in all a complete mess!!!!
Not all heroes wear capes, (although I could get one)??
After inspecting the system and making sure the customer was happy with the plan, I Installed the correct Under Floor Heating manifold and made good all installation errors trying to reuse existing components where I could to keep the price down as the customer had unfortunately already paid a small sum for zero results.
Unvented cylinder discharge corrected and system re-piped to work correctly without creating damage to the customers floor.
Here are three takeaways:
- When you are going to spend a lot of money installing a new heating system, do your research, Engineers should be able to demonstrate that they have the right technical skill and knowledge for the job.
- get references, if an engineer is good at the job they will have customer references and feedback readily available.
- All new installations should be focussing on efficiency, Engineers should be carrying out a heat loss survey and encouraging the system that is going to be better for the environment and cheaper to run for the customer such as the installation of systems with components such as weather compensation instead of just plonking in a system that is cheap and quick to install but that will cost the earth to run.