Replacing a Dangerous Boiler in a Community Centre

GR Heating & Plumbing Services was hired to carry out an annual safety service and safety check for a local community centre, which included inspecting a gas-fired boiler and three gas-fired space heaters.

The space heaters were found to be without fault and had no safety issues. However, a split was discovered on the inner plastic flue way of the gas boiler. Unfortunately, because the split had been present for quite a while, flue gasses and condensate which had escaped from the split over time had caused severe corrosion to the boiler’s inner metal plate, causing it to rot through.

The boiler was classified as immediately dangerous, and with the permission of the manager, was disconnected from the gas supply.

Although we found that the inner flue pipe could be purchased as a spare part, the boiler’s inner casing could not. So as a result, the boiler unfortunately could not be repaired and returned to safe use. However, if regular servicing had been carried out on the boiler prior to this point, it could very well have been possible to repair the boiler instead of replacing it – so it is always worth making sure that your boiler is adequately maintained.

We then discovered that the original boiler was also too small for the space which it was meant to heat. So as a result, one of the heating zones within the building had been permanently switched off in order to heat the rest of the main building.

So as a solution, we installed two boilers instead of one, each of them capable of contributing towards heating up to 75% of the building’s requirements, so that the building would be amply catered for, and permanently warm. These boilers also came with a seven-year parts and labour guarantee from the manufacturer, for extra peace of mind.

In addition, the client reported several issues with the historic heating controls, which we also resolved.