More At The Farmhouse
A Small Building Job
Work On Our Own BathroomThe last you saw from the work on our own house was the completed chimney and continued work on the pillar downstairs. We are now working full steam to get our dream bathroom completed! Previously our bathroom consisted of a toilet and a bath, there was no flooring other than the floorboards and no tiles on the wall. As you can imagine, with work being carried out on our bathroom the use of the facilities is limited, so we use every spare minute we have each evening after work to carry on. You can see our progress over the past week below. Make sure you check back next week for more progress on our bathroom
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Another busy week
Back to the farmhouse
That's all we have this week, be sure to check back next week for our new blog post.Happy Valentines From Eco DragonAs you know from our last post, we have been up to so much lately that we couldn't fit it all into one post. So please enjoy part 2 of this blog and don't forget to let us know what you think. Old Systems and new boilers
A New Large-Scale Renovation Project Near Liskeard
Fitting In Our Usual WorkWe may be very busy with large jobs at the moment as you have seen in the past 2 posts, however it is important that we remain loyal to our trusted customers and try to fit everyone in where we can. Two of our recent jobs have included fixing a locked-out boiler and installing a towel rail. After receiving a call to tell us that a boiler had locked-out, we went to the customer to see what we could do to get their heating back on. After a bit of problem solving, we discovered the fault lay with the AAV (Auto Air release Valve) that was allowing water out of it as well as air. As you can see in the picture below, this allowed limescale to build up inside the boiler and seal the AAV closed. We advised the customer that their 12 year old boiler may not last much longer and they should consider a replacement boiler, but to get them by for now we cleaned off the AAV to allow air to release again and reset the overheat lockout and the boiler began to work again. The installation of the towel rail was one of our more straight forward jobs. Any job no matter how big or small can go right or wrong, and luckily for us this job went very smoothly. The customer is installing the rest of the bathroom themselves but asked us to do the towel rail for them and all went very well leaving the customer very happy. You can see the results below. That's all we have to show you this week but make sure you check back next week to see more of what we have been up to.Keeping BusyHere at Eco Dragon we have certainly been keeping ourselves busy. A lot of work recently has involved quoting for new jobs including full heating systems and refurbishments. Winter is definitely the busiest season for work so it is important to give us a call before you need work doing to make sure we can fit you in. We don't want to overload you with how much we have been doing, so our recent work will be split over 2 blog posts, with the 2nd one following on Tuesday. A Very Unhappy BoilerRecently we were called out to repair a boiler that wouldn't fire up. Our first inspection found that the oil pump didn't work anymore. After replacing the oil pump and firing the boiler up, it locked out again. When a boiler wont fire up correctly it is usually down to poor air flow or fuel flow. So we checked the fuel flow first and discovered that the fire valve had also stopped working, as fuel was flowing to the valve but not flowing through it. This is likely to be the reason that the oil pump stopped working as the pump was starved of oil. After replacing the fire valve it was time to fire up the boiler again and this time it worked! This is where the importance of our analyser comes in. If we did not have our analyser we would have thought everything was fine and left the job, however as you can see from the picture above, the results could have been fatal if not checked. The 2nd result on the analyser measures how many parts-per-million of carbon monoxide there is in the air. Anything above 400PPM is considered dangerous and usually the boilers we check are between 1 and 20, however as you can see this boiler is reading at 1228PPM, more than 3x the safe limit. Fortunately for the customer we spotted this and managed to alter the flow rates of the oil and air to bring the level back down to well within the safe zone. Finally after 2 days of repairs and alterations, this boiler is back up and running. Sometimes, a plumber's work is not for everyone.We were called out to a job where the client said another plumber had replaced an existing radiator for them. According to the client the plumber had done a terrible job of the install and it was leaking right from the start. When we got to the job, we were shocked to say the least. As expected the radiator was leaking, but we weren't quite expecting to see such a poor finish on a job by a qualified plumbing and heating engineer. The pipes were extended above the floor by more than half a meter each and were fitted slanted to make up for the change in depth of the radiator away from the wall. As well as this, holes were left in the clients wall from where the previous fittings had been removed. We removed the radiator that had been damaged during it's install and re-altered the pipework under the floor to come up straight into the valves at either end of the radiator. We also installed a larger radiator to meet the heat loss requirements of the room and cover up the previous installer's handy work. Another Customer happy with our work. That's all for now but make sure you check back on Tuesday for part 2 of this weeks blog postEco Dragon's first blog post of 2017!We hope you have all had a fantastic end to 2016 with lots of festivities and hopefully a well deserved rest. You will be happy to know that Eco Dragon is now back up and running after having some time off and the phone is going crazy! It is so important to us that all of our customers are kept warm and safe throught the winter so please give us a call if you find yourself having some issues. As usual this winter we have had a lot of calls about boilers breaking down and we do our best to get out to you as soon as possible, but it's not just boilers.
What have Eco Dragon been up to over Christmas?Inside the house we have been building framework around the steel beem from when we made the downstairs open plan. The framework will be boarded and plastered with the rest of the walls and ceiling so the beam will really become part of the room. With our spare insulation from renovating downstairs, we have begun to insulate the upstairs bedrooms. The bedroom in the picture shown was the coldest room in the house before we began, however now it is just as warm as the rest of the house.... and we aren't even done yet! Back to work!
already for emergencies such as this and were able to replace it immediately. After replacing the circulator the boiler fired up and the customer had heating and hot water once again. In the above pictures you can clearly see how bad the corrosion was of the circulator which had a leak directly above it. This is why it is important to have your boiler regularly serviced so we are able to detect any signs of issue early on.
This week- doing what we can to have you sorted for christmas
More on the analyser
are reading 7PPM and we are happy as long as it is below 500PPM so this is a good result. The ratio measures the difference between the CO2 and the PPM and as long as the reading is below 0.004 the boiler is still safe to be using, and as you can see from the picture the ratio is 0.0001 so this is the best result we can ask for. In picture 2 we can see the Net efficiency (EFFN) and the Gross efficiency (EFFG). Looking at the Gross efficiency we would expect a new oil boiler to be running at this level, so all in all after a good clean this boiler was running as good as new! Continuation of the bathroomAs you can see the bathroom is coming along nicely, however due to an unrelated injury it was unable to be completed this week. The shower tray is now bedded and the tiling is done, you can even see our apprentice building upon her tiling skills! All tiles were chosen by the customer and we have worked closely with him to design the bathroom just as he likes it! Fitting gas bottles with a 4 Bottle Regulator Valve
Finally - our chimneyWith winter quickly drawing in, we are certainly getting busier!
Tuesday - a day full of servicing!Unfortunately no pictures were captured of the boilers we serviced this day, however feel free to browse our website (especially the gallery) to view other boilers that have been professionally installed and serviced by us! Installation of a new bathroomThroughout the rest of the week we have been removing an old, damaged bathroom suite and replacing it with a new one. You will be able to see the finished bathroom in next week's blog post, but for now have a look at the progress so far below. And finally - how's the chimney?
Don't forget to comment on our blog to let us know what you think and check back next week for more Eco Dragon updates!What have we been up to this week?Our regular services and repairs (click on each picture to expand)
while a fault is no good for you, they are certainly helping with the training of our apprentice. Once she is fully trained, we will have an extra member of staff on hand so we will be able to get out to more calls with an even faster response rate! New heating and hot water system at Gorran HavenWe have now completed all the pipe work at the renovation project in Gorran Haven. The next step of the process is to pump water into the system up to 10 bar of pressure. The MAXIMUM your system would ever run at of its own accord is 3 bar of pressure, so if there was any fault in our pipework we would certainly know about it now! If you would like to read a bit more on water pressure in a heating system, you can do so on the Baxi website -> HERE <- This is a very important stage of the project as we need to be positive that there are no faults, not only for our peace of mind, but yours too! All of the pipework at this project is currently exposed so we can check that our work is perfect before the floor is put in place at the project. Just a little bit of space to squeeze in the installation of a toilet, shower and basin.
Progress on our chimneyDon't forget to add any comments you have about our most recent post, check out our old posts and check back next week for a new post!
Have a great week. What have we been up to so far this week?The work of our apprentice: Eco Dragon South West Ltd's apprentice has been hard at work learning the trade. In the pictures below she can be seen creating a run for the pipes under the floor at a current renovation project in Gorran Haven, as well as soldering pipes leading to the hot and cold feed in a future bathroom. You can also see an example of our apprentices pipe work under the floor where she has been shown how to overcome the obstacle of crossing pipes through the bending of pipes and careful placing of elbows and Tee's.
Our usual annual services on boilers, as well as repairs |
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Keeping up to date with all the latest from Eco DragonWe love pictures! By taking pictures regularly of work we are carrying out, we can be sure that you are seeing the best of what Eco Dragon has to offer. Remember, if you want to see the most recent pictures of our work then head on over to our Facebook page or check out our Facebook and Instagram feed on our home page! Eco Dragon South West Ltd are proud sponsors of Hiryu Budou-Jyo (Flying Dragon Martial Arts Club)
Our plumbers, Heating Engineers and Construction Workers are based in St Austell and cover most of Cornwall!
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