Glow-worm is now introducing a full two-year parts & labour warranty as standard to every single one of its SEDBUK A boilers.

The two year warranty applies to all combi, open vent and system appliances in the Glow-worm A-rated range including: 

The Ultracom - with inbuilt digital programmer and stainless steel heat exchanger.

The Ultracom cx – with simple analogue plug-in timer and stainless steel heat exchanger

The Flexicom – the first HE boiler with direct rear flue and cupboard fit

The Ultrapower – floor standing system store that gives endless hot water on demand for large properties and exceptionally high efficiency levels.

“The two year warranty is supported by Glow-worm’s market leading service organisation which has over 200 engineers on the road with 1,500 spares in their vans. This enables them to achieve a 97% fix rate along with 50 service agents and technical experts on the phone helping you and your customers to easily book service calls and get advice should a fault occur”.

“Once installed the 2 year warranty can simply be registered by the installer or then end-customer online at www.glow-worm.co.uk or by completing and returning the warranty form that comes in the box with the product as standard”.

“With the 2 year parts and labour warranty, not only are you installing a 100% tested, high quality A-rated appliance from a well known experienced manufacturer, but you are also giving the homeowner peace of mind that they look for as an essential part of the service you offer”, says Michelle Crowder for Glow-worm.

Think locally, act globally is an environmental slogan which came home to Belper when heating engineer Alistair Cooper was asked to do a job.

You can’t get much more local than Mr. Cooper’s first installation of Glow-worm solar panels - just down the road from the place where he took one of Glow-worm’s first solar courses, the company’s head office in Belper. The heating engineer’s customers were certainly thinking globally since their motivation for installing the kit was to do their bit for the environment.

Alistair Cooper of A J Cooper Plumbing & Heating Services, Horsley Woodhouse, Derbyshire, employs anything from 6 to 12 heating engineers up to six days a week fitting Glow-worm domestic boilers into one-off installations.

The solar job came about through a builder friend, who happened to be re-roofing the property when the householder asked if solar panels could be installed at the same time. Since the scaffolding was up, it seemed to make sense to do the two things in one go.

 “With gas prices increasing as they are, they thought they would be foolish not to have solar panels installed at the same time as the re-roofing,” said Alistair Cooper.

The builder recommended A J Cooper, who was eager to use his Glow-worm Clearly Solar BPEC training course knowledge, as well as getting involved in this exciting new sector.

The heating engineer installed two panels on the roof and a twin coil unvented cylinder in the loft; all available in an easy to order 2 panel pack kit from Glow-worm.

Capable of providing 50-60% of the homes annual domestic hot water and with all the necessary components available from one manufacture, Clearly Solar was the straightforward choice for the installation.

“A neighbour from round the corner drove past, saw the panels being installed and stopped and asked us to quote,” said Alistair Cooper. “That's one that I've got in the pipeline.”

“I think this type of work will snowball. We have got another two possibles in the pipeline. I can really see it taking off. There are more and more heating engineers vans around flagging up solar engineering, whereas, five or six years ago there were very few.”

Although there are plenty of conventional gas boiler work around, Alistair welcomes solar installations as an extra string to his bow. “Anything extra is a bonus,” he said. “We get involved in a lot of new build developments and there has been a dramatic increase in the number of solar thermal systems being installed- which is good news for us now we are fully trained to fit them”.

The panels were installed in an in-roof arrangement on the side of a dormer section of a T shaped roof. Alistair had been advised when he went on the Glow-worm Solar BPEC training course that planning permission is not required for solar installations providing the panels do not protrude more than 200mm from the line of the roof.

All the same, he was told, it’s good practice to keep the planning department informed, so out of courtesy, the customer wrote a letter informing their local planning office of the proposed installation.

“Providing it isn't a listed building or an ancient monument then most of the time there's no argument,” said Alistair.

“When you go out to survey the job you tick off the questions and are prompted to mention lots of important things to the customer.

The Glow-worm Clearly Solar BPEC training course was excellent in this respect. It’s a new avenue for us so there is a big element of sales and customer handling. Another great thing about attending the Clearly Solar BPEC course was upon completion, we were given a Glow-worm Accredited installer pack, containing site assessment forms, commissioning checklists, brochures, ‘Accredited Installer’ stationary software and also a £300 cash back voucher for money back off the first kit we ordered. Attending the BPEC course was really good value for money for me.”

The installation was reasonably straight forward and was all wrapped up in three days. “After the installation, the customer was so pleased with their new solar system that we received a letter of thanks”.

“The installation was a learning experience which we really enjoyed,” says Alistair who installs a lot of Glow-worm boilers - nine in just one month recently.

“The main reason we choose Glow-worm is reliability and Simon Brown, Glow-worm’s East Midlands regional sales manager. He's excellent. If we get any problems or anything we are unsure about even at eight o'clock at night I can phone Simon and it’s dealt with”.

“When you get that sort of back up you are reluctant to switch.”

Simon Brown said this job was the first Glow-worm solar installation in Belper, the location of the company’s head office.

“I was pleased by how well the installation went,” he said. “It’s good to get local installations close to the factory and the neighbours seemed very interested so there will probably be more.”

Glow-worm, with its policy of continuous improvements to all products, has announced upgrades to its range of hot water cylinders with better packaging of the motorised valve.

The improvements are to the two port motorised valve supplied in the cylinder. The gear system has been strengthened and the depth of the main cog increased. It is now nearly twice as deep (at 6.4mm compared to 3.4mm.

While Glow-worm was fine tuning the range it also improved the packaging of the water inlet group. The main point was to improve the security of the grub screw used to secure the expansion valve. Now Glow-worm has the manifold piece sealed in a plastic bag for installer convenience.

Ideally suited to Glow-worm’s well renown high efficiency open vent and system boilers, all cylinders can be used with other manufactures boilers too. Glow-worm hot water cylinders operate directly from a mains water pressure supply and need no feed from a cold-water storage tank.

The 22mm DHW outlet and cold water mains inlet connections give consistently optimum flow rates.

Performance and energy efficiency is further enhanced with insulation that achieves heat loss as little as 1.7kWh per 24 hours and a high recovery heating coil that provides recovery in as little as 20 minutes. This meets CHeSS best practice. Maintenance is straightforward and simple - no anode is required.

 All cylinders are also provided with an auxiliary back up 3kW electric immersion heaters, including operating thermostat and energy cut out. Dimensions are 600mm at the widest point on all models.

According to the Government, climate change is the greatest long-term challenge facing the world today. NOx and CO2 emissions are a major contributor to global warming, mostly from transport and industry, but there is also a significant contribution from older domestic boilers. These alone account for around 60% of all domestic CO2 emissions according to the Energy Saving Trust which says the most effective way to reduce that figure and to burn fuel more efficiently is to replace them with the new generation of energy efficient low NOx condensing boilers using 30-40% less fuel.

The Government last year announced ambitious plans for all homes to be zero carbon by 2016. This announcement was quickly followed by the introduction of the Code for Sustainable Housing which introduced certain standards for local authorities and the construction industry to work towards when constructing new homes or dwellings: these focused not only on limiting CO2 emissions from boilers but on other aspects of performance too, including NOx emissions.

On 27 February this year the Government confirmed a mandatory rating against the Code, implemented from 1 May. The Code measures the sustainability of a new home against nine categories of sustainable design, rating the 'whole home' as a complete package. The Code uses a 1 to 6 star rating system to communicate the overall sustainability performance of a new home.*

Low NOx boilers achieving less than 40 mg/kWh NOx and a SEDBUK A rating on efficiency are now a must for social housing projects if developers want to score maximum points in the Government’s Code for Sustainable Housing. This is an important point for new or replacement installations in social housing. “It can also assist developers working towards level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes as installation of these boilers means they can claim the maximum three credits for low NOx emissions,” says Glow-worm System Technologies Engineer Martin Butcher.

All new build homes must conform to the Code for Sustainable Homes in terms of energy efficiency and reduced nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions. Dwelling emissions for code level 3 must now be 25 per cent better than current Building Regulation requirements. The legislation is aimed at reducing energy emissions from the property and reducing pollution by encouraging lower NOx emissions.

Boilers on the market that achieve less than 40 mg/kWh NOx and SEDBUK A rating on efficiency through stringent design and development processes and by using the latest pre-mix burner technology have begun to appear and offer the best option for all new build and refurbishment programmes.

Fitting the new generation of boilers has probably never been simpler. For areas that are compromised on space developers should look out for units that can be cupboard fitted and have the option of fitting a direct rear flue. Flues can normally be taken through an adjacent exterior wall or through the roof. If this is not possible, there are boilers which offer the flexibility of up to 40 metre twin flue which should take care of almost any eventuality.

In confined spaces, some units come complete with prefixing jigs for water and gas connections, which means the pipework can be assembled before fitting the boiler to the wall. Butcher also recommends investigating models that can be easily installed and commissioned without removing the case.

Between them Glow-worm’s Ultracom, Flexicom and Ultrapower ranges of condensing boilers all achieve less than 40 mg/kWh NOx and SEDBUK A rating on efficiency, offering more than enough choice to suit social and private housing developments of any type, size or character.

Glow-worm’s Ultracom 24hxi has been named as the Which Best Buy in a survey and testing of all makes of boiler models and brands. The Which? report, acknowledged to be the most prestigious and influential of all consumer product testing in the whole of the UK, found that the Ultracom heating-only model ‘meets all the requirements of a good boiler’. The Glow-worm Ultracom 24hxi also scored the highest marks of 78%, of all the 17 models and brands tested.

The Which? report says that the Ultracom hxi is ‘easy to install, service and use. Little heat gets lost through its casing, and power use is low.’ It goes on to say that the control panel has a reset button, central heating temperature control mode/program button and a digital display showing mode and output levels. The Which? report is especially praising of the controls.

Says Michelle Jakeway, Marketing Communications Manager for Glow-worm, “We are delighted that such a prestigious organisation as Which? has given us the ‘Best Buy’ accolade. It is a marvellous hallmark to what is a very popular range of boilers.”

Ultracom has also been officially sanctioned and tested as delivering less than 40 mg/kWh NOx, making it kinder to the environment.

Ultracom is a complete domestic boiler range, offering combis, open vent and system versions. The Ultracom cxi - combis are in outputs of 24, 30 and 38kW with the Ultracom hxi - open vent models in 12, 15, 18, 24, 30,38kW outputs and the Ultracom sxi - system models in 18 and 30kW outputs – more than enough choice to suit any type of domestic property of any type, size or character of architecture.

The key features of the Ultracom are:

·        Intuitive and technically advanced in-built digital programmer for heating and hot water control;
·        SEDBUK A rated;

·        NOx Class 5, highest possible rating;

·        Stylish, sleek looks to enhance any interior design

·        Bottom cover plate hides all pipe work for clean, neat finish;

·        Eco setting for further fuel economy;

·        Five second hot water response; on all combi models

·        Stainless steel heat exchanger for long, durable and reliable working life;

·        On-board diagnostics for instant serviceability;

·        Two-stage frost protection and anti-seizure controls;

·        Extensive flueing options, The Glow-worm Plume Management Kit and Condensate Pump are further options for the best possible installation.

There is also a version of the Ultracom combi with an optional plug-in mechanical timer. This is called the Ultracom cx and is available in 24 and 30kW outputs.

 The Which? report also points out that all new Glow-worm boilers are covered by 2-years parts and labour warranty for added peace of mind and are supported by Glow-worm’s extensive national after-sales service network.