Smiths Heating Solutions Ltd

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Smiths Heating Solutions Ltd Smiths Heating Solutions LTD is a family run company dedicated to providing excellent customer servi

Ok so this is a great example of corporate service and local service. £4767 or whatever for a new boiler, as in just a b...
16/10/2026

Ok so this is a great example of corporate service and local service. £4767 or whatever for a new boiler, as in just a boiler oh and some controls.
Fitted in May this year, customers over 80 no heating or hot water.
Company sent engineer to put right, and guess what still a big problem, customer had now paid me a callout fee to assess situation, and now they have to put their hand in their pocket again to sort out this mess.
They went for the big firm as felt more security having 8500 engineers or whatever getting an install from these guys surely it's going be plain sailing.
Let's break it down, £987 for the vailiant boiler, everyone recognizes vailiant, great brand but like all manufacturers they have their premium and budget models. The ecofit is a downward firing burner with aluminum alloy heat exchanger, not stainless steel, stainless always being the preferred option as a lot more hard wearing and can withstand things like water softeners being used. But this customer sees the word 'vailiant' and thinks 'amazing' . Cost for boiler though is about right. £1681 fitting costs..... job was done in a day so you do the maths, this is a labour cost to remove old appliance, brick up old flue hole and run new pipework and cut in new flue straight through the wall.
This may now sounds crazy but most heating engineers will be looking for around £500 - £600 a day on installs? Why so much?!? This cost covers all the other things like organizing materials, picking stuff up, designing the system etc etc. Most would get this done in a day or two. So let's say £1200 labour, happy days.
£1048 installation essentials ?!? This is where it starts getting weird, flue installation, flue, let's say it's around £100, takes about an hour say to drill a hole and plonk it on boiler, labour costs covered as above, next, pipework and connection, on this job it was a couple meters of copper and fitting some plastic pipe and a filter, over egg it, £ 400 labour cost already included.
Electrical work, new programmer £80 room stat, standard thing £30, sparky for a new fuse spur, half a day say £200
£720.
Tailored extras?!? .... there isn't any £1300.

No powerflush, header tank absolutely minging, system pipework blocked. Who fits a replacement boiler to a system 30 years old without a flush?

5 year warranty...... Viessmann is 12.
Job like this for me and probably most the local lads around me looking at max £3000, that's a decent boiler, weather or load controls to improve efficiency, app based control if required, full flush of system and header tank long warranty.
Thing is we probably haven't got the time to make all the pretty paperwork and pictures of engineers high fiving the customer, they might probably get an email or a quote with a header on it.
Too busy actually fixing, installing and servicing boilers, we haven't got the time to sit there and do grand designs on a quote that majority of the time will get turned down when facing companies like this
That's the trap for the customer, professionalism at point of sell, doesn't necessarily mean professionalism when it's needed most.
Use the local guys
Myself Smiths Heating Solutions Ltd
HomeFix heating and plumbing services Ltd.
John Lancaster Plumbing & Heating
Matt Sartain from octopus
Alec Price from wiltshire renewables, air conditioning and heat pumps
Dan Gould from HHP plumbing and heating
Matt smith
The Boiler Doctor from Warminster
Empire Heating Solutions from bath
KMP Heating from Trowbridge
BPH plumbing, heating and renewables
Etc etc
There are many more good guys that I haven't got time to list but if they see the post and they think I am right then by all means tag yourself in the post, don't see any of them as competitors, as plenty of work about but unfortunately we are all up against it with these major firms taking the absolute p&@$

However not going to say the actual fitters or service engineers are the bad guys, blame the salesmen and institution for trying to push a crazy culture of profit and not doing the right thing, it rolls from the top and the people at the bottom always get shafted one way or another, be the customer or the employee.

Rant over 😂🙈

02/10/2026

Not even cold yet and work diary is cooked! I will apologize now but realistically looking at a 3-4 week notice period for works to get booked in. Obviously if you are existing customer with a big drama then we will obviously try and go the extra mile and squeeze something in after core hours if required.
Just thought it would be wise to post something about availability, as getting a lot of new enquires where we can't react within a 2-3 day window

Cheers guys!

Just signing off emergency boiler swap! Old boiler needed some repairs that worked out nigh on half the cost of a new un...
24/09/2026

Just signing off emergency boiler swap! Old boiler needed some repairs that worked out nigh on half the cost of a new unit.
Customer wanted to retain use of old controls on the wall as familiar with them, however still managed to squeeze a weather compensation stat on there and some alterations to existing control strategy to convert to x plan priority hot water, customer won't notice difference in interface but will on the $$$$!
12 year warranty as standard through Viessmann

NO ROOM THERMOSTAT?!? What! Just pure weather compensation! Understanding Weather Compensation:Weather compensation cont...
22/09/2026

NO ROOM THERMOSTAT?!? What!

Just pure weather compensation!

Understanding Weather Compensation:

Weather compensation controls the temperature of the water in your radiators by measuring the temperature outside, ensuring your home stays at a steady, comfortable temperature.

​Here is the step-by-step breakdown of how this process works.

​Radiator Heat Output and Room Temperature A radiator warms a room because heat naturally moves from hot objects to cooler surroundings. The hotter the water inside the radiator compared to the air in the room, the more heat the radiator gives off.

​Room Heat Loss Every room constantly loses heat through its walls, windows, roof, and floors to the outside. To keep a room at a steady temperature, the radiator must put heat into the room at the exact same rate that heat is escaping.

​The Impact of Outdoor Weather When the weather outside gets colder, heat escapes through the walls and windows much faster. If the heat leaving the room increases, the radiator must get hotter to push more heat back in. If the radiator stays at the same temperature, the room will cool down.

​The Temperature Ratio There is a direct relationship between the outdoor temperature drop and the required radiator temperature rise. For every degree the outside temperature falls, the radiator water needs to rise by a specific amount to balance out the extra heat loss.

​How to Calculate the Weather Compensation Ratio (Slope) To work out this ratio—often called the slope or gradient of the curve—engineers look at two extreme conditions:

​Mild Weather (Heating Off Point): Imagine the outside air is 20°C and you want the inside to be 20°C. No heating is needed, so the radiator water temperature is 20°C.

​Coldest Day (Design Outdoor Temperature): Imagine that on the coldest day of winter it is -3°C outside, and your radiators need water at 66°C to keep the rooms warm.

​To find the ratio, you divide the total change in radiator temperature by the total change in outside temperature:

​Change in outside temperature: From 20°C down to -3°C is a drop of 23°C.

​Change in radiator temperature: From 20°C up to 66°C is a rise of 46°C.

​Calculation: 46 divided by 23 equals 2.

​This means the weather compensation ratio is 2:1 (or a slope setting of 2.0). For every 1°C the outside temperature drops, the boiler automatically increases the radiator water temperature by 2°C.

​Choosing the Design Curve To set up a weather compensation system correctly, engineers calculate the exact radiator water temperature needed on the absolute coldest day of the year (known as the design outdoor temperature). This relationship between outside coldness and required radiator heat is programmed into the heating system as a "heating curve." The curve tells the boiler what water temperature to send to the radiators based on what the outdoor sensor measures.

​Why Indoor Thermostats Struggle (Hysteresis) You might think putting a single thermostat inside the house would work better, but it has flaws. A single thermostat only measures one room, which might not match the rest of the house. Additionally, standard room thermostats suffer from hysteresis—meaning they wait for the room to get too cold before turning on, and let it get too warm before turning off. This causes constant temperature swings.

Importance of full strip and clean servicing. At regular intervals a boiler really needs a full strip and clean service ...
06/08/2026

Importance of full strip and clean servicing.
At regular intervals a boiler really needs a full strip and clean service and gasket seals need to be replaced. Some boiler manufacturers recommend a certain minimum period as the seals need to be replaced when removing the boiler. The above image is a Vaillant on a 5 year interval. Some boilers like the viessmann range can be stripped and cleaned every year as the seals don't necessarily need to be replaced everytime the burner is removed.
Without taking the burner out at points the heat exchanger will get fouled to the point where operation is comprised.
Only point this out as some bigger national companies are pushing out servicing jobs on a discount, some less than £80, I can honestly say you won't get a thorough service from a these setups, check what you are getting before committing, look through your service history and your boiler manual to see what needs to be done at certain points, at least that way you know you will be getting value for money and actually be prolonging the boilers life!

Swamped with work in August?!? What is going on? Another emergency one done this week, Viessmann on a four pipe setup, r...
23/07/2026

Swamped with work in August?!? What is going on?
Another emergency one done this week, Viessmann on a four pipe setup, removing the need for zone valves so less to go wrong for the customer, weather compensation as standard, ntc sensor to unvented cylinder to provide quick and accurate heat times and modulation. All controlled via app, again as per standard, removing the need for room stat and programmer so again less things to go wrong, all with a standard warranty of 12 years through Viessmann! To get all these functions on some of the other boilers on the market would add a significant price to the bill. Replaced a 37Kw boiler with 18kw, which is more than ample to cover the heating load. Many boilers are oversized unnecessarily, reducing efficiency with on / off control methods. Even though this is a system boiler it meets the current "boiler plus" efficiency rating which normally is only relevant with combination boilers as it can be difficult to implement load or weather compensation control with a hot water tank setup.

Emergency boiler swap as boiler flue collector failed. Bit of a tight one to get in due to the position of the gas pipe ...
23/07/2026

Emergency boiler swap as boiler flue collector failed. Bit of a tight one to get in due to the position of the gas pipe and condensate, so had to find it in the wall and adjust. All good in the end!
7 year warranty on the alpha range, nice little boiler for the price, have less drama with these than the competitors equivalent.

The old beast had better days! Couldn't even turn the water off as this commercial property so had so go off existing pi...
01/07/2026

The old beast had better days! Couldn't even turn the water off as this commercial property so had so go off existing pipework which was a pain. No soldering just bending and press fit today!

Sometimes it not obvious there's an issue until we start to dig deeper! Split in the back of a flue collector, found on ...
12/05/2026

Sometimes it not obvious there's an issue until we start to dig deeper! Split in the back of a flue collector, found on a routine service, that's why it's so important to get these boilers checked out routinely

Baffled sometimes why strip and cleans are sometimes overcharged ?!? Literally takes me an extra 15 minutes to pull Burn...
18/03/2026

Baffled sometimes why strip and cleans are sometimes overcharged ?!? Literally takes me an extra 15 minutes to pull Burner out wash through heat exchanger and replace a seal. I don't even charge any extra labour on a service. I got an hour and normally this can be done within that time frame. All I charge is the additional gasket. This one is on a vailiant that needs to be done within a 5 year period. If you have never had a strip and clean you should question why. Forget this self cleaning burner rubbish from certain manufacturers, unless you are running at low temperatures, the heat exchanger will build up a layer of debris which will effect its efficiency over the course of time

Address

28 Cleveland Way
Westbury
BA132GH

Telephone

+447463075768

Website

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