Following the installation of a new boiler at St Eustachius’ Church, the heating system is to be further improved with the help of a £1,000 community grant from Devon County Council, for which we are extremely grateful.

Improvements will provide benefit to all the community who use the church, and are to include cleaning and refurbishing radiators, with a new one in the vestry toilet, balancing heating in the Vestry, relocating the header tank to the Vestry roof space to eliminate the damp threat to robes, an alarm for the boiler room sump pump and replacement of water supply lead pipes.

More about the boiler installation:

The old boiler had been causing problems for some time and Tavistock based company, DB Heating Ltd, was commissioned to replace it. Last year, after several weeks of no heating, the long-awaited replacement finally fired up on 21 December, just in time for Christmas services. The installation works (which required a new stainless steel chimney flue) cost nearly £30,000, part-funded by the church and made possible by the generous support of The Friends of St Eustachius’.

In an article in the Tavistock Times of June 6 this year, DB Heating of Tavistock director Lawrence Barnes spoke about the challenge of integrating the new 21^st century system with the original Victorian network of pipes and connecting with the existing flue system to comply with the necessary standards. But, he said: ‘The new, high-efficiency boiler with a heat exchange system means that the new boiler system can integrate with the Victorian pipes that run throughout the church. The boiler has a closed circuit and heats the water in the pipes through a heat exchange plate.’

The article explains that the British-made boiler is 150kW (when a domestic boiler would be 30kW) but referring to running costs Lawrence reassures: ‘It only uses the minimum amount of gas to heat the interior because it reads the outside temperature and heats the church accordingly’.

Head of Fabric at St Eustachius’, Nick Clark, explained why the new heating system took longer than expected by some parishioners. The final design for the replacement boiler was approved in 2017, while urgent re-roofing work was underway to the Vestry roof.  The new boiler required a new stainless steel chimney flue liner and to avoid having to erect scaffolding above the vestry a second time, it was agreed it would be more cost efficient to incorporate it into the roofing contract.

He said that despite the inevitable delay, the Church was grateful to both the roofing company, JB Roofing, of Tavistock, and to DB Heating that no overall increase in cost was necessary, adding: “We’re extremely grateful to DB Heating for delivering a quality system for the church, and for their dedication in ensuring it was up and running in time for the Christmas services.’

The Very Reverend Dr Christopher Hardwick being introduced to the new boiler!