Built to perform
In 2011, Baxi Commercial Division teamed up with BSEE to offer one lucky reader the chance to help out their local community in the Baxi Community Challenge. All you had to do was provide the details requested of a building utilised as a regular meeting place by a community group that is in need of a new gas-fired boiler or water heater, explaining the difference that a suitable donated product would make to the organisation.
In previous issues we announced the following shortlist of five:
The Silvester Horne Institute
Buxted Scout Group
Scrappies
Hooley Village Hall
The Guiders' Association, Smoke Alley
We can announce that the winner was Hooley Village Hall in Surrey, for whom we could make an immediate difference by donating one of our products!
Baxi Commercial Division has a vast range of technologies which could be applied to this building, such as a solar thermal water heating solution, so that the village community could benefit from renewable energy savings in the future. However, given that the old boiler is a large domestic combi, the quickest and least disruptive option of a better performing, more powerful and more energy efficient replacement combi was chosen. A Baxi Duotec 40 combi boiler has been supplied which will adequately serve the existing radiators that heat the hall and cloakrooms and provide hot water for wash hand-basins in the toilets.
Speaking on behalf of the Hooley Village Hall Community, a volunteer, Brian Richardson of Harris & Bailey Ltd, a local plumbers' and builders' merchants, said, "We are very happy indeed to be the recipients of a new boiler for our village hall. The building is totally funded by money raised within the community, mostly through organised events, and the building is run and maintained by volunteers. It is quite 'high maintenance' because of its age and its type of construction.
"Originally built as an Air Force assembly point for the World War II Fighter Station at nearby Kenley Airfield, in 1949 the building was purchased by the residents of Hooley and re-erected on its present site within the village. We rely to an enormous extent on the generosity of local business donating materials for repairs and replacement equipment but sometimes, as in this case, it is too big an ask or task and we are extremely grateful for help from outside. The hall has been extended since 1949 and the original boiler has struggled to cope for a long time and needed constant attention. We had desperately wanted to replace it with a modern, high efficiency model so we can reduce our fuel bills and carbon emissions. By choosing the combi replacement option the Pensioners' Christmas party will be the first event to feel the benefit of our new heating system. What a wonderful Christmas present!".
