A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT……….
Three Rivers District in Hertfordshire will shortly be consulting tenants on a proposed move for its housing stock to a new housing association. In the meantime it is keeping up its good work on the domestic heating of its 3,800-plus housing stock, and became the first local authority partnership with Glow-Worm in the UK.
Three Rivers District Council in South West Hertfordshire is the first Council to create a formal partnership with Glow-Worm.
Three Rivers District Council housing department has a busy gas team, overseen by Technical Manager, Stuart Duncan. The team is responsible for the domestic heating of the 3,800-plus housing stock in this picturesque, suburban, corner of Hertfordshire. Managing new installations, replacements, annual safety inspections and ongoing maintenance of all the gas-fired domestic heating systems are all part of the team’s daily responsibilities.
Three Rivers has expressed its commitment to high efficiency domestic heating boilers and sees its partnership with Glow-worm as valuable support in delivering high quality maintenance services. The Council performs about 100 -120 new installations each year, together with roughly 250 replacement heating systems.
“We work in partnership with organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors,” explains technical manager Stuart Duncan. “We’ve developed a very effective collaboration with Glow-Worm which we believe has benefited our tenants. The formal partnership contract has been invaluable. With a priority hotline for under guarantee work and a supply of spare parts the same as Glow-Worm’s own engineers, the down time of boilers that do give problems is kept to a bare minimum.”
“Another major part of our relationship with Glow-worm has been the provision of training courses. We understand we were the first council in the country to successfully complete all the Glow-worm high Efficiency Training Courses. And training will remain a top priority for both us and Glow-worm.”
Stuart adds:
“High efficiency boilers go anywhere in a housing unit. There’s no barrier to that – there’s so much choice in terms of boiler products and flueing flexibility. Pluming kits have also made a big difference. These kits allow us to place boilers anywhere. Prior to them being available it was sometimes difficult in certain situations.”
Three Rivers have been installing the Glow-worm xi range – mainly combis, some heating-only (with a thermal store) and a small number of system boilers. All models in the Glow-worm hxi, cxi and sxi models are light weight and have enough flueing capability – along with the addition of a Plume Management Kit – to allow boiler siting almost anywhere in a Three Rivers DC property.
“High efficiency has had a smooth introduction here in Three Rivers. But we anticipated it and planned for it,” says Stuart. “We have our own council-employed team of eight engineers and three office personal. We also work closely with Bowden’s– a heating installation specialist contractor, for the new installations”.
“The only difference in our installation practices with high efficiency boilers is the addition of the condensate pipe – and that’s no big deal or problem. The xi range has worked well and we look forward to the Flexicom range.”
The other major development in the Three Rivers approach has been to adopt the use of HE combis where possible. The installation of a HE combi at a new or replacement site can save as much as 25% on total costs. “Taking out a conventional boiler plus a thermal store to replace it with just one unit – a combi – is a major saving,” says Stuart.
The council is quietly proud of its efficient operation but keeps looking to the future. “We will see what the future holds for domestic heating, especially in view of fuel costs. We are currently conducting a survey into our tenants’ satisfaction with both our service and their own heating systems”.
