Guest Blog

Nowadays the way our homes look to others represents a large part of our own personality and identity.

For this reason it is only natural that many people don’t like the idea of having the inner workings of their heating and plumbing systems on display within their home.

Boilers

More and more people are opting to hide their boilers from the view of others.

This has been made a lot easier thanks to the modern combi boilers ability to provide a high level of heating & hot water despite their moderately compact size. These smaller dimensions also make it possible to tuck boilers away within cupboard spaces.

If you don’t have the room in your kitchen or bathroom to place you boiler, then you may be one of the growing numbers of people that have moved their boiler up into the loft space.

From a space perspective this certainly makes a lot of sense. Moving your boiler to an area of the property that you don’t use as regularly means you are given a lot more room in the areas you spend a lot of time in.

This is fine until something goes wrong. If you have a problem with your boiler system then you will find that hosting your boiler unit in a more remote part of your home can soon become a hindrance.

I myself have one of the 25si Worcester Combi boilers installed in my loft space and for the most part this has worked well. The only problem is when I have had issues with my heating system it makes the whole process of dealing with the problem a lot more stressful.

A small demonstration of this occurred only the other day when I was having a shower just before my boiler decided to overheat and shut down. Being alone in my home at the time I was forced to dry off the best I could mid-shower, climb up a rickety ladder and reset the boiler. If the boiler was in its previous location in the 1st floor airing cupboard this whole process would have been a lot less arduous – and certainly less cold.

On a more serious level, if you were to ever need to commission larger work to be done to your heating system, then having your main boiler unit in a less accessible area of your home can be inconvenient at best.

Pipework

The same principal applies to the pipework that runs throughout your property carrying both hot and cold water to and from your radiators and boiler.

A lot of people are now deciding to hide their pipework from natural view, instead opting to conceal pipework behind a plastered wall or by boxing it in. Again, this may look better, but the moment something goes wrong then you are in trouble. The time it takes a plumber to get to a damaged or leaking pipe is obviously going to be reduced if the pipe in question is hidden away.

The likelihood is that you will not experience any major problems with your central heating system or water pipework, but it is always worth considering the implications of hiding everything away before doing something that can cost you more money in the long run.

About the author: Tom Key is the Marketing Coordinator for Direct Heating Supplies.