Heating Engineer in Northam, North Devon

Northam sits on the hill between the Torridge estuary and the sea, with Bideford below it, Appledore at the bottom of the road and Westward Ho! on the other side. It is bigger than most people expect, roughly 6,500 residents across the EX39 postcode, and the housing tells you what the heating work here looks like.

A large share of Northam is post-war and 1970s to 1980s bungalow stock, much of it built for people retiring to the coast and still lived in by owner-occupiers. Bungalows mean long pipe runs, hot water cylinders rather than combis in a lot of cases, and systems that have often been extended or partly upgraded over forty years rather than replaced in one go. That is exactly the sort of system where an annual service earns its money, because the failure is usually a pump, a valve or a cylinder control rather than the boiler itself.

I am George Lane, Gas Safe registered, working on mains gas boilers and heating systems. Northam is about 20 miles by road from South Molton, roughly half an hour, and I am over this side of the district most weeks for Bideford and Appledore.

Hot water cylinders that have never been serviced. Plenty of Northam properties run a system boiler and a cylinder. If yours is unvented, it legally needs an annual G3 service and most have not had one. Failed expansion vessels and seized relief valves are the common finds.

Zone valves and pumps at the end of their life. On a bungalow system that has run for decades, the actuator on a mid-position valve is a frequent cause of heating with no hot water, or hot water with no heating.

Thermostats still on mechanical timers. Replacing a 1980s programmer with proper zoned controls is usually the cheapest change you can make to a heating bill in a house this shape.