For any leisure sector establishment, the availability of hot running water is business critical. After all, who wants to visit a gym if they cannot have a shower after their workout, or a swimming pool if they are unable to wash the chlorine out of their hair?
While specifying a reliable boiler and ensuring that it is regularly serviced and well-maintained should allow this business critical requirement to be delivered in most situations, any boiler can break down unexpectedly, leaving clients with no hot water and the management team with a major headache. Certainly, any well-managed establishment can expect a fast response from an engineer as part of its servicing contract but real life is never that simple; identifying the fault and repairing it could take days and no-one wants to wait that long for a shower!
In the interim, the management team needs to find a way of ensuring a reliable supply of hot water is available for clients and staff and hiring temporary boiler equipment is the obvious way to do this.
“In the past,” explains Mark Hills from heating and cooling hire specialist, Watkins Hire, “the most likely solution to a boiler failure in a leisure sector environment would be a temporary boiler, which would be hooked in to the existing pipe work to provide a like-for-like alternative to the permanent boiler. In some situations, perhaps when a temporary boiler is required for a longer period while a new boiler is specified, installed and commissioned, for example, this may still be the best option. Whilst the installation of a temporary boiler can be done in only a few hours, sometimes it can take longer due to outside factors beyond the control on the boiler rental company, for example finding a suitable site for the equipment, health & safety, fuel delivery and access restrictions to name a few.”
A new generation of portable emergency hot water tanks is now starting to provide a quick fix alternative whilst a temporary hot water boiler hire unit is installed. Instead of being plumbed in to the existing boiler system, this type of compact, portable alternative is simply plugged in to an ordinary mains socket and connected to the cold water supply to provide up to 55 litres of hot water in around an hour.
Mark continues: “Any type of temporary hot water hire solution is likely to be a distress purchase and customers are looking for speed of installation, ease of use, convenience and low costs. It’s important to consider that different solutions will be best matched to different applications and in some instances a larger piece if kit will be required. Increasingly, however, the hire industry is responding to customer demand for quick fix options so it’s worth shopping around to find a company that can provide something lightweight, portable and above all quick to install.”
Watkins Hire’s own emergency hot water tank resembles a yellow wheelie bin and is just as simple to manoeuvre and position. Once plugged in and connected to the cold water supply, the tank acts as an emersion heater and not only heats the water to 600C in a hour at a cost of just 20p, but keeps it hot too. In fact, the water will remain hot for 24 hours, with heat loss of less than half a degree per hour even when the unit is unplugged.
“As a company we supply emergency cooling using air conditioners, portable chillers and heating services using mobile boilers and portable heaters to many local authorities for their leisure facilities as well as supporting the commercial sector. The biggest trend in the hire industry is the provision of greater choice for the end user,” adds Mark. “Until this type of emergency hot water tank became available all the options involved connecting the hire equipment to existing pipe work so this really is a revolution in emergency hot water solutions.”
Watkins Heating boiler Hire has Europe’s largest range and most modern fleet of Portable Low pressure heating boilers for hire. We can deliver to you fast from our nationwide depot network.
- South East 0208 667 0088 / 07879 600992 – Email Andy Ellis
- South West 01594 835834 / 07836 276177 – Email Rod Williams
- West Midlands 01922 634797 / 07825 123823 – Email Chris Easterlow
- Northern East 01695 724888 / 07825 212914 – Email Jim Craig
- South Wales 02920 277000 / 07827 445512 – Email Jason Campbell
- Scotland 01324 664222 / 07717 501118 – Email Rob Kemp
- Northern Ireland 02890 950077 / 07825 618277 – Email Brian Woods
- Ireland 00353 12480092 / 0044 7825 618277 – Email Brian Woods
Does your company operate from Multiple Office locations and do you want a single point of contact for your entire specialist HVAC hire requirements? Our dedicated National Accounts team can help.
- National Accounts 07500 788345 – Email Nick Campey
- National Accounts 07787 518171 – Email Terry Stevens-Smith
