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Month: August 2024

  • Adrian Marsden
  • HVAC expert

With colder days just around the corner, September is the perfect time to get your commercial heating systems checked over and serviced by a Gas Safe-registered engineer.

This way, you’ll know everything is running safely, efficiently and reliably before you reach for that thermostat.

Here are five of the best reasons to book your boiler in for an MOT, and make sure the heating and hot water stay on all winter along with ensuring compliance in your business..

Commercial boiler servicing

Commercial boiler servicing keeps you compliant

Regular boiler servicing ensures your heating system is both safe and compliant with all relevant regulations – protecting the people you’re responsible for, as well as your reputation.

By law, your commercial properties need to have a Gas Safety check every 12 months, plus a Gas Safety certificate for every piece of equipment that uses gas. Just remember to get proof of your engineer’s competence – simply ask to see their Gas Safe card. If in doubt, check their details on gassaferegister.co.uk

Servicing maintains efficiency and reduces energy costs

Servicing and preventative maintenance is always the best way to prevent future problems and reduce the chance of running into problems during the winter months. Boilers of any age need to be serviced regularly, and it’s recommended that you service your boiler at least once a year. Although there’s a cost to having your boiler serviced, you’re likely to enjoy improved efficiency and reduced energy bills in the longer term.

Boiler servicing keeps your warranty valid

For certain models and manufacturers of boilers, an annual boiler service is required to keep a valid warranty going. Failing (or forgetting) to service your boiler could void your warranty, leaving you with costly repairs or replacements that would’ve been covered otherwise. In a similar way, some building insurance policies have annual boiler servicing as a requirement.

Boiler helps you avoid costly future repairs

Having your commercial boiler serviced annually means smaller issues are much more likely to be picked up before they turn into bigger (and more disruptive) issues, which could even cause your boiler to break down altogether. A broken-down boiler is expensive to sort out – and will cost even more to replace. Even worse, it could leave you and your premises without heating or hot water when you need it most.

The JLA Heating Service and Response contract

With Gas Safe-registered commercial boiler engineers throughout most of the UK, JLA can help to prevent boiler and heating problems, keep you compliant, and make sure your water hot and radiators stay warm. Our service contracts include:

  • Annual servicing and Gas Safety check
  • Asset specific compliance certification (CP15)
  • Same/next day business hours response times
  • No call-out charges
  • 24/7 helpline for faults or emergencies
  • A choice of 5 or 7-day-a-week contracts.

For more heating advice from our experts, get in touch today. Or to book in for your boiler service, simply head over here. Or view of commercial heating service contracts.

  • Adrian Marsden
  • Commercial boiler expert

Your commercial boiler runs all year round to keep hot water running and heated rooms along with ensuring full compliance. But what about caring for the boiler itself? Read our solutions to some of the most common issues.

Commercial boiler installation

1: Your boiler’s pilot light keeps going out

A pilot light is a small gas burner that’s permanently alight inside your commercial boiler. If your boiler’s pilot light keeps going out, the issue could be something as simple as a draught blowing out the flame, or a build-up of soot on the gas nozzle.

Alternatively, a broken thermocouple (a safety device) could be stopping the gas supply.

What you can do

Firstly, make sure your other gas appliances are working properly. If they aren’t, you should contact your gas supplier as soon as possible and get the system looked at.

If your gas supply looks OK, then it might be time to upgrade to a new JLA commercial boiler to ensure full compliance.

2. Your commercial boiler is gurgling, whistling or banging

If your boiler is making unusual noises, the most likely cause is air in the system. Low water pressure or a failing pump could also be the cause. Whatever the cause, try not to ignore it: these noises are usually signs of a fault that could become a more serious issue.

What you can do

If your boiler is humming or vibrating, check its settings. If its output temperatures are set too high, for instance, it could be working too hard for long periods of time. It’s also worth making sure that the boiler’s metal case is properly secure or there are screws missing, it’s much more likely to vibrate. 

We recommend calling an engineer to ensure a compliant repair of your boiler.

3. Your boiler is leaking

Causes will vary, depending on where the leak or drip is coming from, but a leaking system could mean a broken seal or valve, or is the result of corrosion. Whatever the reason, this isn’t a problem to ignore and the boiler could no longer be compliant.

What you can do

Sadly, some problems are too serious or technical to tackle yourself. If you’re looking at a boiler leak, it’s always safer to call in a Gas Safe-registered engineer – never try to repair a boiler on your own.

4. Low boiler pressure

If your boiler’s pressure gauge shows a reading lower than 1 bar, or consistently loses pressure when it’s been topped up, you could be looking at a system leak or a faulty expansion vessel.

What you can do

Check for obvious leaks on the property – radiators are the best place to start. If you do find a leak, call an engineer to repair your boiler immediately.

If there are no visible leaks, you could re-pressurise the system by carefully following your boiler manufacturer’s instruction manual. But if there’s still no improvement, call an engineer – it’s likely there’s a failed component in the system, or there’s a hidden leak.

5. Your radiators are cold

If your radiators are only partially warm, or only some of them are working, the most likely culprit will be air in the commercial heating system.

What you can do

Carefully bleed your radiators using a radiator key, which you can easily buy if you don’t already have one. Firstly, turn off the heating so hot water isn’t flowing to your radiators. 

If there’s no improvement, the system might need flushing – this needs to be carried out by a professional heating engineer.

6. The boiler is kettling

If your boiler is whistling like a kettle, a build-up of sludge, minerals or limescale is probably restricting its water flow, and causing the water inside the boiler to overheat. This is a common problem in areas with hard water.

What you can do

A kettling boiler is usually a sign that bigger problems are just around the corner, so it shouldn’t be ignored. Not only will the boiler be working much harder (and more inefficiently) to reach the temperatures you need, but it could also cause cracks and damage to key components of the boiler.

To solve the issue, call out a registered professional engineer and get your system professionally flushed. 

7. Your boiler isn’t responding to the thermostat

A faulty thermostat can sometimes cause problems in a system that’s otherwise healthy.

What you can do

Check your thermostat. Sometimes, something as simple as an accidental knock can switch off or change its settings. If your thermostat settings look normal, but the temperature isn’t – or the controls aren’t responding at all – it could be time for a replacement, especially if it’s an older unit. 

As this job involves wiring, it’s vital that you get a qualified professional involved.

8. Your condensate pipe is frozen

Condensing boilers come with a pipe that carries condensate to an external drain. In colder weather, the condensate pipe can sometimes freeze up, causing noise in the pipes. Your boiler should have a fault code that tells you when its condensate pipe is frozen.

What you can do

Thawing a condensate pipe is often as easy as warming up the pipe with a hair dryer or hot water bottle. Start near the boiler and work your way down the pipe – you should see water begin to flow into the drain. We suggest calling out a registered engineer to ensure this has been correctly.

9. Your boiler keeps switching off

This could be caused by a variety of different issues, including a thermostat problem, low water pressure, or a lack of flow.

What you can do

Check the boiler’s pressure and thermostat (see issues 4 and 7 above). If adjusting the thermostat, bleeding your radiators and/or re-pressurising the system doesn’t do the trick, call a registered boiler engineer to repair your boiler.

10. There’s no heating or hot water

Being without heating and hot water is a problem that needs solving fast, particularly for care homes, housing and hospitality sector. In this situation, there could be a number of causes, most of which will need an emergency call-out and replacement parts.

What you can do

There’s rarely one single issue that leads to a boiler failing to provide heat or hot water, but it’s worth checking before anything else that there are no issues with your boiler’s water pressure or thermostat.

If you’ve checked for these issues and still have no heating or hot water, it’s time to call in an engineer.

Keep compliant with JLA's heating service contracts

With JLA’s commercial heating service contracts, we’ll keep your boiler running smoothly, prevent future issues and ensure it is fully compliant.

Our extensive network of Gas Safe-registered commercial boiler engineers are located throughout the UK keeping your heating on and your hot water flowing.

  • An annual service and gas safety check
  • Asset specific compliance certification (CP15)
  • Same/next day business hours response times
  • No call out charges
  • 24/7 helpline for faults or emergencies
  • A choice of 5 or 7 day a week contracts

Get in touch today.

The challenge: new commercial boilers for a leading care home with minimal disruption

Situated in the peaceful countryside of Quarrier’s Village, Renfrewshire, Campbell Snowdon House is a leading independent care home for over 65’s.

Since 1984 their aim has been to create a ‘home from home’ where each resident not only benefits from the extra personal care they require but has the opportunity to participate in the varied events and activities available.

Campbell Snowdon House required new commercial boilers to provide heating and hot water for the large beautiful sandstone home with minimal disruption for residents, staff and visitors.

"Our recent plant room design and proposed installation was a difficult task on many levels, but the JLA HVAC team have been extremely professional and helpful in delivering the project to a very high standard."

Paul Sandham, Health, Safety and Maintenance Officer at Campbell Snowdon House

JLA partnered with the team at Campbell Snowdon House to replace the existing heating system and design, supply and install new energy-efficient commercial boilers. The JLA range of commercial heating systems ensure reliability and efficiency backed with extensive support from our nationwide network of engineers.

"The level of professionalism and skill during the project was very impressive. I have many years’ experience running installations as a Technical Director so I know a good job when I see one! The team delivered the project as agreed and I would not hesitate to recommend JLA”.

Paul Sandham, Health, Safety and Maintenance Officer at Campbell Snowdon House

Contact us for advice and help with your care home heating systems.

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Engineer Sign off

From laundry rooms to kitchens and everywhere in between, care homes must follow strict standards to ensure the safety of their residents. So, if you’re running a care home, then having the correct commercial equipment in place is vital. 

To help you find the right equipment for your care home, we’ve put together this care home commercial buying guide. Here, we outline what equipment is needed for care homes, why this equipment is required and the standard you’ll need to follow. 

Laundry equipment for care homes

The healthcare sector relies on the highest levels of cleanliness in order to keep residents safe. This is why it’s so important that you purchase equipment that helps you fulfil your legal obligations to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the Department of Health’s Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) 01-04 regulations. 

In a care home, disinfection must be achieved in every wash cycle. To ensure performance and compliance, you need to use commercial laundry equipment. You also need to ensure you run heavily soiled laundry through a sluice cycle and pre-wash cycle before washing the laundry in an appropriate cycle. 

A well designed laundry room with separate ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ areas will help minimise cross-contamination risks in your laundry room.

When drying laundry, it’s also important that you use safety-focused commercial dryers that will reduce risk. You should also dry linen and clothes immediately after washing and remove items from the dryer as soon as they are dry. 

For the ultimate in laundry disinfection, take a look at our OTEX disinfection system, which provides a verifiable way to meet HTM 01-04. OTEX is available with a verification unit that monitors the amount of ozone being injected into the wash process and provides a printed ‘receipt’ confirming the cycle has achieved disinfection. This then provides you with the audit trail you need for CQC inspections and can even help to save you energy. 

The following guide will help you know the key considerations when designing a care home laundry room.

Catering equipment for care homes

Monitoring food safety and achieving the highest level of general hygiene is vital in residential care homes. After all, vulnerable residents are more at risk from food poisoning and associated illnesses, while outbreaks of E.coli could be more likely due to the weak immune systems of residents. 

Much like with laundry, the CQC is responsible for inspecting the cleanliness of your kitchen. On top of this, as a care home, you’ll also need to have a food safety plan based on the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles. You must also provide your local food safety authority with evidence that the plan is being followed. 

To make sure you follow best practices, you’ll need to have appropriate refrigeration and cooking appliances in place. Due to this, you need to purchase the correct catering equipment for care homes.

In the kitchen of your care home, food must be stored at a temperature of 8ºC or below. This allows you to control the multiplication of most bacteria in perishable food. In care homes, it’s recommended practice to operate refrigerators and chillers at 5ºC or below. 

Thankfully, to help make monitoring temperature simple, commercial fridges for care homes usually come with external thermometers. These fridges are also specifically designed to maintain the correct temperatures. A domestic fridge or freezer would struggle with this, so specialist equipment is required.

Similarly, you should ensure that your commercial freezer keeps food at temperatures of -18ºC or below. This will prevent bacteria from multiplying. A blast chiller can also ensure food is cooled rapidly before storing in a freezer, reducing bacteria. 

On top of this, you also need to select the right cooking equipment for your care home. Generally speaking, temperatures of 75ºC or above are effective in destroying almost all types of bacteria. However, cooking temperatures below this level are also effective provided that the food is held at these temperatures for a suitable time period. 

To ensure that you reach these temperatures in your kitchen, we recommend that you use a combi oven with an in-built temperature probe. This will also make sure that you are able to accurately record cooking data, which can be invaluable for audit purposes. On top of this, hot cupboards are an ideal way to maintain temperature while transporting food.

Macerators for care homes

In your care home, you’ll likely have plenty of single-use medical items, such as bedpans and urine bottles. Disposing of these items manually can pose dangers. For example, if you use yellow bags, then you could be at risk of wide-area contamination. This is because manual disposal can pose a cross-contamination risk when carried through communal areas to a central bin store (which can pose its own infection control challenges).

Thankfully, you can eliminate this possibility by instead using automatic medical pulp macerators, which provide you with a fast, cost-effective and hassle-free alternative to manual sluicing. Ultimately, a macerator can reduce the risk of cross-infection in ‘dirty utility’ and sluice rooms. Plus, you can also reduce the inconvenience and unpleasantness of yellow waste bag build-up.

With the help of a macerator, you can efficiently and safely dispose of single-use medical items such as bedpans and urine bottles in under a minute. Plus, with hands-free technology, you can reliably eliminate cross-infection at the touch of a button and ensure that pulp and human waste are disposed of simply and safely.

Take a look at our guide to learn the difference between a bedpan washer and macerator.

Heating and air conditioning equipment for care homes

Finally, you’ll also need to consider temperature control in your care home. This extends to both heating and air conditioning equipment for care homes. 

Older people feel the cold more than younger generations and they cannot keep warm by moving around as much. Added to this, keeping a care home warm can prevent illness. 

The temperature of a care home can directly affect how often residents get sick and the severity of the illness. After all, greater susceptibility to colds, flu and pneumonia happen when residents aren’t able to get warm. As a result, proper temperature control is vital.

Similarly, when the weather gets hot in the summer, periods of prolonged heat can cause residents great discomfort. In some instances, it can also lead to residents becoming ill and also has an affect on staff, visitors and contractors in the home. Due to this, a proper cooling setup, such as air conditioning, is just as vital as a heating solution. 

Thankfully, our commercial heating and air conditioning solutions for care homes are built around your needs. Our commercial heating range includes floor standing and wall-hung boilers as well as water cylinders and water heaters. Our air conditioning range covers wall-mounted, ceiling cassette air units, split units and VRV systems. 

To help ensure you have the right systems in place, we will conduct an initial site assessment before our expert and skilled design and engineering team install your future-proofed commercial heating and air conditioning system. 

Fire safety equipment for care homes

Fire and security systems are critical in any building, but care homes include a large number of vulnerable people so there is a heightened importance to ensure full compliance with fire safety regulations.

Fire safety systems are very broad and encompass passive fire safety measure like doors and compartmentation through to active solutions like fire extinguishers, alarm systems, signage and AOV’s. 

Safety measures don’t just stop at the installation of the system, but continual maintenance, servicing and remedial repair works are also critical to ensure compliance and safety for your residents, staff and visitors.

That concludes our care home commercial buying guide. At JLA, we’ve been helping care homes for almost 50 years. If you’re still unsure what equipment your care home needs, then contact our expert advisors today. We’d love to help you find the perfect solution for your needs. 

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Olivia Nolan

Care sector expert
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Olivia has been supporting some of the UKs largest care providers for over 10 years and is also the sector specialist for care.

Olivia has an excellent understanding of the commercial and technical requirements of care homes, having overseen many contract mobilisations and contract deliveries. 

Along with a drive to help make sure your critical equipment is running smoothly, Olivia’s primary mission is to work with customers to find the right solutions to your challenges.

Read Olivia's full profile

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