WTS Plumbing & Heating design and install commercial boiler plant. We are a family-run firm working from our head office at Jayes Park Courtyard in Ockley, near Dorking, and we have been designing and installing mechanical services for landlords, managing agents and main contractors since 2008. We also work in Putney and the wider SW15 area on request, subject to availability. Putney is not a market town with a tidy industrial estate to work in. It is a London town centre where the boiler you are allowed to install is decided by the route into the plant room, the flue you can terminate and the gas capacity at the incoming service.
This page covers installation only. Servicing and breakdown work on an existing boiler are different jobs and sit on different pages. Installation here means sizing the load properly, choosing between a single boiler and a cascade of modular units, laying out a plant room somebody can still work in, running the flue and the gas, sorting the low temperature hot water circuit, pumps and pressurisation, then commissioning the plant and handing over records an estate team can actually use.
Putney's commercial stock and what it does to a boiler replacement
The retail core runs from Putney Bridge south to Putney station along Putney High Street, a spine of Victorian and Edwardian shop terraces with offices and flats above them. Its anchor is the Putney Exchange Shopping Centre off the High Street, an indoor centre anchored by a Waitrose, with a rooftop car park reached from Lacy Road. Those High Street units are narrow, much of the frontage has no rear service road, and there is a tenant living directly above the ceiling. A floor standing boiler that has to travel in across the shop floor before opening time is the reason so many replacements here end up as a cascade of modular units carried in by hand.
The office pitch is Upper Richmond Road, the A205 South Circular, with buildings such as Zeeta House at 200 Upper Richmond Road, 175 Upper Richmond Road and Oxford and Cambridge House at 178 to 182 Upper Richmond Road, plus smaller converted stock like SWG House on Keswick Road and Blades Court on Deodar Road. The stock ranges from pre-war buildings to recent redevelopments, so the plant room you inherit varies enormously from address to address, and roof access is by internal stair rather than a goods lift more often than not. Down at the river, around Putney Wharf Tower and Brewhouse Street, services often sit at basement or lower ground level on a tidal frontage, where flood risk, pumped drainage and faster corrosion all belong in the design.
The heaviest heating loads sit out at Roehampton and Putney Vale. The University of Roehampton runs four colleges at Digby Stuart, Froebel, Southlands and Whitelands, an estate that ranges from Parkstead House to much later teaching accommodation. Kingston University has its engineering campus at Roehampton Vale on Friars Avenue. Queen Mary's Hospital on Roehampton Lane is a PFI building, so access on sites like it usually runs through a facilities management contractor and a permit system, and the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability on West Hill cannot lose heat at all. Add Putney Leisure Centre on Dryburgh Road, the schools at Putney Hill, Pullman Gardens and Clarence Lane and the Embankment boathouses, and almost every install becomes a staged changeover around a calendar somebody else owns.
What this covers in Putney
Cascade and modular boiler plant
Most Putney plant rooms are the wrong shape for one large boiler, so we measure the route before anything is specified: door widths, stair turns, lift car sizes and the height limit on the Lacy Road rooftop car park. Modular units in cascade are chosen to fit that route, and they let the plant turn down on a mild day instead of cycling against a load that is not there. We size the cascade against a calculated load, not the badge on the old boiler.
Plant room layout and ventilation
The room itself is drawn before anything is ordered. We fix where the gas and water enter, leave real access to valves and strainers, check the headroom over the flue connections, and size the combustion and cooling ventilation to suit the appliance rather than the old one. Drainage, condensate and the safety valve discharge route are settled at the same time, and we hold back enough maintenance clearance that the next engineer is not stripping pipework to reach a pump.
Flue routing, dilution and Putney frontages
Putney Embankment is a conservation area, and there are others across Putney and Roehampton, so a flue terminal on a visible elevation will be questioned. We route to the rear or up an internal riser wherever the building allows it. Where a terminal has to sit at low level in a service yard or light well, a dilution flue is usually a better answer than a fight over the frontage, and the flue design gets settled before the boiler is selected rather than after.
Gas supply, metering capacity and pipework sizing
A bigger boiler is only bigger if the gas reaches it. We check the incoming service, the metering capacity and the existing pipework before the plant is chosen, run the pressure drop calculation for the new load, and where the supply falls short we handle the transporter upgrade application and build the wait into the programme. On the High Street parades the whole selection is often decided by where the gas meter sits and whether a riser can be run past a tenanted flat above.
LTHW circuits, pumps and pressurisation
New plant on an old circuit fails on water quality and pump duty more often than it fails on the boiler. The multi-let Upper Richmond Road blocks tend to hand a new cascade an oversized pump and a high temperature circuit, so we clean, flush, dose and sample the system, then reset the pumps, the low loss header and the pressurisation unit to suit the new plant. Down by the river, basement plant means routing safety valve discharge and the fill point around pumped drainage.
Controls, BMS interface and handover
Boilers get replaced more often than the controls around them. We agree early whether the cascade talks to an existing building management system or a new sequence controller, then set optimum start and compensation against real occupancy. On the multi-let Upper Richmond Road blocks the head end belongs to the managing agent; Putney Exchange units run to centre trading hours; Roehampton's university and school estates run on term and vacation profiles. Handover includes commissioning records, the operating and maintenance file and time on site.
Building control, gas paperwork and Wandsworth planning
New commercial boiler plant is notifiable work, so the certification route is agreed with you at design stage and not discovered at handover, whether that is a competent person notification or an application to Wandsworth building control. Anything visible from a Putney street or from the river is a planning conversation as well as a technical one, and on a listed building or a conservation area frontage that has to start early. Gas soundness testing, purge and let by results, flue integrity checks, commissioning sheets and manufacturer start up reports all go into one handover file, and we tell you plainly which items are legal duties and which are industry guidance we have chosen to follow.
Keeping the building warm while the plant changes over
Very few Putney buildings can lose heating and hot water for a week. At the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability on West Hill, Queen Mary's Hospital on Roehampton Lane and the nursing and residential settings nearby, that is not negotiable, so a changeover is planned around temporary boilers, temporary connections and staged isolations agreed with the facilities team. At the University of Roehampton, Kingston's Roehampton Vale campus and the schools around Putney Hill and Pullman Gardens, heavy mechanical work realistically happens in the vacations with permits to work, hot works permits and DBS checked engineers. In the High Street units and inside Putney Exchange the honest window is early morning before trading, under centre management permits.
Typical commercial buildings in Putney
- Multi-let offices along the Upper Richmond Road corridor
- Putney High Street shops, cafes, pubs and restaurants
- Retail units inside Putney Exchange Shopping Centre
- Riverside mixed-use buildings at Putney Wharf and Brewhouse Street
- Independent and state schools across Putney and Roehampton
- University and college estates at Roehampton and Roehampton Vale
- Care homes, nursing homes and specialist long-term hospitals
- Rowing clubs and boathouses on Putney Embankment
- Leisure centres, churches and chapel buildings
Duties and standards that apply
- Gas work in commercial premises must be carried out by a Gas Safe registered business under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, and the engineer needs the commercial categories that match the appliance type and its input rating. WTS is Gas Safe registered. Ask us for our Gas Safe registration number and check it on the Gas Safe Register before work starts and check the entry on the Gas Safe Register before work starts.
- New boiler plant has to satisfy the Building Regulations, principally Part L for efficiency and controls, Part J for combustion appliances, flues and air supply, and Part G where the installation includes hot water storage, which governs unvented cylinders and the routing of safety device discharge. Approved Document L Volume 2 covers buildings other than dwellings. Approved Document J only gives guidance for gas appliances up to 70kW rated input, so above that the design is demonstrated against BS 6644 and the IGEM standards instead. The work is notifiable, so we agree at design stage whether it is certified through a competent person notification or through an application to Wandsworth building control.
- The design references we work to are British Standards and industry guidance rather than statute, and we are clear about the difference. BS 6644 covers the installation of gas fired hot water boilers in the 70kW to 1.8MW range, and the IGEM installation standards for flued gas appliances in industrial and commercial premises cover flue routing and dilution. Those are the documents a dilution flue in a Putney service yard or light well, or a terminal on a conservation area frontage, gets judged against when Wandsworth or the building control body asks how the design was arrived at. Following them is how a competent installation is demonstrated, not a legal duty in its own right.
- Before a plant room in a pre-2000 Putney building is stripped out, the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 put a duty to manage asbestos on the duty holder and require a suitable and sufficient assessment before any work that could disturb it. In practice that means the building's asbestos register and, where the register does not cover the plant room, a refurbishment and demolition survey to the HSE guidance in HSG264. Where the installation includes calorifiers or stored hot water, the legal duty to control legionella sits with the duty holder under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and COSHH 2002. The Health and Safety Executive's approved code of practice L8 sets the framework and carries special legal standing rather than being law itself, and the technical detail for hot and cold water systems is in HSG274 Part 2.
Common questions
Yes, in nearly every case, by using modular boilers in cascade rather than one large unit. Individual modules are selected to pass through a normal doorway and up a stair, then assembled on a common header inside the room. We measure the whole route at survey stage and tell you before anything is ordered if a particular unit will not physically make it.
Through the front, out of hours. On the High Street parades and inside Putney Exchange the practical slot is early morning before trading, with floor protection across the shop, a permit from the landlord or centre management and the route made good before the doors open. Removal of the old plant, delivery of the new modules and any lifting are planned as separate visits so you are not closed for a whole trading day.
Often, yes. Several of Putney's commercial frontages sit in or next to conservation areas, and Wandsworth Council will look closely at anything visible from the street or from the river. A rear route or an internal riser usually avoids the argument. Where neither is possible we look at a dilution flue at low level, and we raise it with the planning team before the plant is ordered rather than afterwards.
Sometimes yes, often not, and it is the first thing we check rather than the last. We look at the incoming service, the metering capacity, the pipe sizes and the pressure available at the appliance, then run the calculation for the new load. If the supply is short, the options are a metering or service upgrade through the gas transporter, which takes time and has to sit in the programme, or a plant selection with a lower peak input and more hot water storage.
That is the normal way this work is planned in Putney and Roehampton. Boiler replacement at sites such as the University of Roehampton, the Roehampton Vale engineering campus and the schools around Putney Hill and Pullman Gardens is vacation work, with permits to work, hot works permits and DBS checked engineers on site. We plan backwards from the date the building reopens and agree what temporary heating is needed if the programme slips into term.
Talk to us about Putney
WTS Plumbing & Heating have been designing, installing and commissioning mechanical services since 2008, from our head office at Jayes Park Courtyard in Ockley, near Dorking. Our commercial work is centred on Surrey, and we also work in Putney and the rest of SW15 on request, subject to availability. If you have a boiler replacement coming up in an office on Upper Richmond Road, a High Street unit, a school, a club or a care setting, send us the plant room details and the access route and we will give you a straight answer on whether we can take it on. Call 01306 621 057 or email info@wtsmechanical.co.uk.
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