We have serviced this customer’s boiler for a number of years but as it became less reliable it also be came much less accessible to fix. The boiler had originally been located in the utility room but it’s flue was deemed to be too close to an opening window and so was moved up to the loft. Unfortunately the clients are elderly and disabled and so having the boiler in the loft was clearly impractical.

Moving the boiler back to the ground floor was always going to present a challenge with the flue as the only really suitable place was the original location. After some research it was found that Worcester Bosch had developed a horizontal flue which can be used on a pitched roof. Other manufacturers weren’t able to offer the same setup because the paint used on the flue wasn’t UV resistant! The Technical Bulletin (0042) describes how the flue can be fitted to the roof and all of the dimensions that need satisfying.

A Greenstar Worcester Bosch  boiler was selected for its superior reliability and work commenced in uncovering the old pipework located in a tight space behind the kitchen cabinets.

As with all boilers we fit a magnetic filter was supplied and fitted to the system to qualify for an additional 1 years additional warranty.

As the boiler was in the utility room it was obvious to us that the above bench pipework needed to be as neat as possible. Making this neat and symmetrical was slightly complicated by a fused spur from the previous boiler being locate in the path of the gas pipe. The gas pipe was moved to the left and the remaining pipes kept close to it so that a clear space could be left for the electrical outlet. The trickiest part of the job was to make sure the flue was located in the correct position to allow it to comply with the Technical Bulletin’s specification.

The main requirement was that the end of the flue had to be 300mm vertically above the surface beneath it to prevent snow from blocking the flue in another, “Beast from the East”, occurrence . This was going to be difficult on a roof with a pitch of about 30 degrees as the telescopic extension was only about 350mm long. A bit of quick school trigonometry.

Clearly for a 30 degree roof the 220mm elevation is not enough and so the flue was extended to hang over the end of the roof meaning the vertical drop was down onto the guttering below. The flue was secured with proprietary hangers and the roof rebuilt and pointed in to reduce draughts.

Finally a hatch was cut into the ceiling to allow for future inspections of the flue joints and the boiler in the loft was stripped out and taken away with all of the pipework disconnected and cut back to ensure it’s fully out of action.

Dr M, the customer, commented, “Tidy workman who cleaned up after work. Pleasant, friendly and explained all the steps in the procedure.”

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