Readers’ letters

Intouch Please send your letters, which may be edited, to editorial@registeredgasengineer.co.uk.

How about some good news about our industry for a change?

There’s been a lot of media news about the gas industry doing the rounds recently. I don’t think anyone could argue that it’s been good news either. Supply shortages, wholesale price hikes, consumer anxiety… that doesn’t even touch the environmental issues that are getting people stirred.

All I seem to be hearing of late from customers is the apparent banning of gas-fuelled boilers. “What are you going to do when that happens?” they’ll ask.

Then I have to explain to them that it currently only applies to new-builds from 2025 and that, hopefully, gas-fuelled boilers will be here for a fair while to come.

“What about those heat pumps? What are they like?” This takes up further time that I can usually ill-afford from my regular workday, but I proceed to explain the merits of them – but only if their house is extremely well insulated and they have a spare £15,000 or so lying around gathering dust.

This usually ends the conversation, but I subsequently proceed to explain to them that their worries are generally unfounded, and that the virtues of the hydrogen revolution, which is hopefully just around the corner, will hopefully enable them to stay warm long into the future.

It doesn’t help that the media industry likes a bad story. Anything to get the public worried seems to be the perfect method for selling stories. Then Boris, with his diplomatic size tens, decides to wade in with a statement or two [that is] totally unachievable and you have the perfect storm.

The gas industry needs some good news. Let’s replace much of the negativity with some optimism for a change. Robin Mackie

We should be championing weather compensation

It was good to read the write-up on COP26 in the recent issue. I can see that many of the actions are at a very high level and a long way in the future. Items such as “reducing coal burning” by countries such as India and China don’t exactly fill me with joy.

I believe we as a heating engineering community have a duty to take matters into our own hands and make positive changes today to reduce our carbon footprint. The Boiler Plus regulations were introduced in 2018 but have been very poorly embraced for a multitude of reasons. One area that offers an immediate and significant benefit is fitting a weather compensation controller to boilers.

Companies have been producing boilers designed to run on weather compensation. I have been on two boiler training courses with one manufacturer but this technology was never explained to me. Perhaps my MSc and BSc in engineering meant that it was too complicated for me to understand.

It was only when I went on another manufacturer’s training course that I was introduced to weather compensation and, from that day, I have been a great believer. Every boiler I fit is fitted with weather comp or Open-therm.

The opportunity to retrofit weather compensation controls to boilers is still available for a small outlay (less than £300). I have begun writing to manufacturers, asking them to promote this technology, with the hope that they will be galvanised by the COP26 “business as usual” and “blah, blah, blah” – which many people believe is the real outcome of the conference.

We need a campaign to educate fitters and customers of the benefits of weather compensation controls and promote the retrofitting of this technology today – not in 2030 or 2050, when the world will be a much hotter place and parts of the UK will be under water. Richard Weir, Boiler Bee

Is flushing necessary when servicing a boiler?

In the article ‘A guide to boiler servicing’ (October 2021), what does Baxi mean by “always flush the system”? Are they seriously suggesting that, during every annual boiler service, the complete system is drained down (all radiators and boiler) re-filled, drained down again and then refilled again?

If they do not mean that, what do they mean? Brian McQueen Registered Gas Engineer asked Chris Riley, Baxi’s national operations manager, for clarification, and he told us: “[This] is guidance for best practice, and is recommended, but there is no evidence to suggest it is necessary to carry out flushing during every annual service.

“The flushing of systems is best practice for the installation of a product. The checking and, where necessary, topping up of system inhibitor level is good practice. If the testing of water quality during a service does indicate that the system needs to be flushed and cleaned, then this should be done as soon as possible to avoid any potential future issues or failures of the boiler or system.”