Find a Heating Engineer you can trust in Pontefract.

In the UK, more than 50 percent of the money paid for utility bills is aimed at heating and hot water costs as stated by the Energy Saving Trust. This also means that when you settle for an old or ageing boiler, you’ll have to unnecessarily incur high utility bill in order to heat your home and have hot water on demand. In this kind of situation, the most effective and practical solution is to fit a new gas boiler in your home. This will provide you several benefits such as improved efficiency and reliability as well as reduced operating costs.

However, the only drawback here is the fact that removing your old gas boiler and replacing it with a new gas boiler isn’t a 5 minute task. And as you would have expected, like many other home improvement project there’s always an element of disruption that you’ll have to put into consideration when fitting a new gas boiler system. Good news is, with a qualified and experienced heating companies, these disruptions can be kept at a minimum. So now let’s take a look at how long it’ll take to replace a gas boiler depending on the type.

✓ An existing combi boiler upgrade - Installation times may vary, but typically the removal of an existing combi boiler and installation of a new one will usually be completed in a day - about four to six hours.

✓ Converting a regular to a combi boiler - Due to the fact that these type of project is usually labour intensive, it’ll take longer to complete - about 2 days.

✓ First time installation of new boiler to a home. This will usually take about 3 or more days because new pipes and other tasks need to the installation will be carried out.

Smart controls such as Hive are the next generation technology with more and more people now converting their houses into smart homes to control multiple devices in the homes remotely. Smart technology can be incorporated with several household devices such as security, lighting, entertainment and more. But what if there’s an oil boiler installed in your home, can you still connect your Hive with the your heating? Well, simply read on to find out.

The answer to this question is yes, most oil boilers are compatible with Hive and can substitute for either an existing conventional programmer or thermostat. The smart technology works to help derive more benefits from your heating system and they usually come with apps which can be used to control your home’s heating from anywhere with just your mobile device. Hive, however, cannot work to replace the functions of smart oil boiler heating controls to modulate your heating as they only work on an on or off basis. To make use of the modulating technology in an oil boiler, the cost of manufacture would be considerably higher while offering little advantage in efficiency for the home or property owner. Ultimately, this implies that you can’t incorporate smart technology to control the output in a similar way as a gas boiler, but there are still some ways to utilize smart technology with your oil boiler in such a way to boost your efficiency and lessen the energy bills.

Do you want to use your Hive with your home’s oil boiler? We’d advise you get in touch with an OFTEC qualified engineer if you wish to install Hive Active Heating on your oil boiler, as British Gas engineer do not offer this service.

When it comes to boiler insurance in the UK, two companies easily comes to mind - British Gas Homecare and Homeserve. Just like any other choice you’d have to make, choosing the company that’s best for you might be a bit difficult especially if you don’t want to make the wrong choice. This article will give you a good insight into the pros and cons of the two companies’ boiler cover to help you make the best choice for your home.

British Gas Homecare Cover

Pros

• Reduced cost of services as a result of the annual payment option.

• An array of affordable packages including both few and several services

• Although vulnerable customers are prioritized, the company offers a 24/7 services.

• Unlimited claims

• Depending on what you wish to get, be it only a monthly boiler cover or more services, you’ll get several services’ options.

Cons

• With a 50% bad rating on a reliable customer review site, you know there is a question mark on the company’s customer service.

• Increment in renewal price after first year of service.

• Lacks cover for the boiler’s sludge or scale.

Homeserve Cover

Pros

• For most individuals, the 5 packages offered are affordable.

• 24 hour help hotline

• From reliable customer rating websites, the company offers a great service.

• Cover costs include both parts and labour.

• There are good options for one-off repairs.

• The options are cheaper than British Gas services.

• There are multiple choices for excess payments for various packages.

• An option for annual boiler repair.

Cons

• Lack of annual payment option

• The price of the packages will increase after the first year

• The services are mostly for houses or flats, while businesses and other types of property are being neglected.

A boiler is simply the most important part of a central heating system as it generates the heat that warms up the home or property. Basically, the appliance or small furnace makes use of gas, LPG or oil in order to fuel its operation. However in the UK, most boilers are usually fuelled by natural gas which is supplied automatically from the national gas grid. And depending on how it operates, there are various types of boilers.

Typically, a gas central heating boiler will have multiple pipes entering from underneath. While one pipe supplies the boiler with gas from the mains gas supply, another pipe allows cold water to enter the boiler to be heated, the last pipe then enables hot water to exit the boiler so it can be distributed around the home.

✓ There are fuel jets and heat exchangers inside the boiler. When the heating is turned on, a valve is opened to allow the mains supply gas to enter a sealed combustion chamber in the boiler. There are multiple little valves which permit the entry of the gas before being ignited by an electric ignition switch. These jets heat a metal component in the boiler known as a heat exchanger which works to transfer the heat to the cold water pipe and heat up the water.

✓ Once the water has been heated to the target temperature, it’s then pumped through a circuit of pipe which runs around your home by an electric pump.

✓ The heated water enter each radiator, is then transmitted via a closed loop and radiates heat into each room.

✓ Once done travelling through all radiators, the water then returns to the boiler at which it must have been cooled. Therefore, the boiler will have to reheat following the same process before circulating. The water can only be drained by a professional Gas Safe engineer

Biomass boilers do require some maintenance. Many manufacturers recommend servicing twice a year, although this is often included in the installation cost. Many systems have automatic fuel loading that removes the need to manually load fuel. You will need to remove the ash from the boiler, but this is as easy as emptying a vacuum cleaner.

Condensing boilers are the in-thing when it comes to modern heating systems in UK homes and across the globe for a good reason. This is primarily due to the fact that condensing boilers happens to be highly efficient as it enables the fuel you’re burning to heat up your home go a lot further. Having a new high efficiency condensing boiler rather than an old G-rated non condensing boiler will not only enhance your heating controls, but also save you a lot of money annually. In this article, we’re going to take you through the basics of a condensing boiler. Let’s take a closer look!

If you’re interested in getting a greener and more efficient boiler, you simply can’t afford to look beyond a high efficiency condensing boiler. This is purely due to the fact that these condensing boilers happens to make a better use of the heat they’re able to produce from burning fuels like oil or gas ( in other words, they require less heat from the burner, which makes them a lot more efficient).

So how does a condensing boiler work? Unlike a non-condensing heat-nly boiler, some heat will be wasted in form of hot gases which are released from the flue. Meanwhile a condensing boiler captures some of the heat from these gases and puts them to use for heating up water that’s coming back from your central heating system. As a result, it requires just a minimal heat from the burner which make the boiler more efficient.

You should take note that all new modern boilers are condensing boilers. Therefore if you’re planning to replace an old boiler with a new one, you’ll definitely be buying a new condensing boiler and benefit from all the efficiency and savings that comes with it.

How Does Electric Central Heating Work?

An electric central heating works to provide a number of benefits for you. These benefits include the following:

lSpace Heating

• The storage heaters work during the night to store electricity which would be used to heat up the heat retaining bricks. This, in turn, will release this energy throughout the day to warm up the room.

• There are also electric radiators which works to deliver on-demand heat and as a result, economy tariffs are totally avoided. It will generate heat by itself rather than storing it and with the controls, you can easily determine the amount of heat to be released when you require it.

• There is the wet electric system options as well which comes with water filled radiators. This operates in a similar way to normal radiators, however, it makes use of electricity to heat up the water.

lWater Heating

• An electric boiler operates in a very similar manner to other boiler types, just that it makes use of electricity as its fuel. Here, the water is warmed by a heating element and the water is later moved to several radiator throughout the house by a pump. These electric boiler types earns you tariff savings as you’ll be able to heat water at night.

• Heat pumps geothermal or air source, redistributes heat instead of creating it. Heat pumps are powered by electricity and it works by absorbing heat either from the air or ground which it then channels it through a pump. This can then be incorporated in heating either water or a room.

• A dedicated immersion heater is another water heating option. Here, the heating element is positioned inside a hot water cylinder. In a similar fashion to a kettle, the element heats the nearby water. Immersion heater can act either as a backup or your main heating element.

First and foremost, the purpose of a landlord insurance is simple and pretty straightforward. It protects against risks associated with your rental property as well as activity. Most policies start out with building insurance as well as property owners’ liability insurance but you’re absolutely free to include several other covers. These covers can include tenant default or accidental damage, loss of rent and more depending on your needs. It’s important to note that varying types of landlord insurance provides coverage for different sorts of risks. For instance, building insurance provides coverage for the cost of repairing or rebuilding your property, while contents insurance provides coverage for contents if they’re damaged or stolen. However, the question is, does landlord insurance cover boiler? In this post, we’re going to shed more light into this to help you make informed decisions moving forward. Let’s take a look!

The short and simple answer to this question is yes, landlord insurance can definitely cover boiler break down! However, this is usually possible only if you select this option when you purchase your landlord insurance policy. With some boiler cover providers, you’ll have to include a home emergency cover to your landlord insurance so as to cover any form of boiler break down. Once this is done, if the boiler in your rental property starts to malfunction or stops functioning, a Gas Safe registered engineer would be sent to your premises to help out with the situation. With this, the repairing cost of your heating system would be covered by the insurance excluding any excess and up to the limit of your policy.