How we helped our client ensure his tenants were warm and always had enough hot water
Do you need heating consultancy for your HMO property? Carrying our building works and need some expert, independent heating advice to help you decide what central heating and hot water system to specify?
Our expert heating consultants can help you establish what approach to take – and help you brief your builder and plumber too.
THE PROJECT
Our client had recently bought a large, delapidated end of terrace house in Birmingham, and was working with his architect to create plans to renovate and remodel the property to create 8 ensuite bedrooms for the student market. He wanted our help to make sure the heating and hot water arrangements installation costs would be affordable – and that the system would be reliable with low running costs for his tenants. He was particularly keen to ensure that the property would be warm and comfortable to live in, and that there would always be sufficient hot water to enable all of the students to have hot, powerful showers whenever they needed it.
THE CHALLENGE
Our role was to check the existing water supply, go through our clients plans, and suggest the best layouts and infrastructure elements to meet his tenants’ needs and his development budget. We then helped make sure the architectural details and specifications were correct and complete, and created a schedule of works which contained all the information that the build team would need to quote against for the construction works onsite.
Although our client’s property was 100 miles away, we were able to carry out all of our work remotely. This was done using our clients plans and photos, as well as our client providing us (via his plumber) with more technical information such as the condition, location and size of the main water supply pipes and water pressures into the house.
THE SOLUTION
We started by carrying out a survey of the property and looked through the architectural plans before emailing our client with our intial thoughts and proposals. Once a general heating system and plumbing approach was agreed with him, we then worked up our detailed recommendations. This included suggesting where the boiler should be placed, positions of radiators, heated towel rails and waste pipes, and checking the layouts within all of the ensuite bathrooms to make sure they were practical both from a suer and a plumbing perspective.
Other advice included how best to organise other ancillary elements and to help make sure that the equipment and pipework was accessable for future maintenance. We also highlighted the future benefits of getting the builder to purchase the equipment, and in doing so have responsiblity for supply and installation – as this often makes snagging and defects as well as any future issues easier to resolve.
Creating a heating system plan in advance can save time, money and confusion later. For example our expert highlighted a number of useful things along the way – including the need to change the floor layouts in the building regulations drawings.
THE RESULT
By being proactive and getting heating consultancy in the design phase of the project to develop his HMO property, our client was able to make the most informed decisons and create a set of accurate, detailed plans for his builder to use both to quote against, and to use onsite.
CLPM Services used by our client:-
Heating Consultancy including a Schedule of Works for heating and plumbing scheme, all carried out remotely.
Working with CLPM has been a pleasure. Rob is knowledgeable but, very importantly, he is also willing to listen and to communicate his expertise. By creating a heating system design in advance we realised that the floor layouts in the building regulations drawings needed to change. This enhancement will definitely help the construction phase run more smoothly.