With heating system maintenance, reliability and efficiency crucial considerations for social housing providers who want to reduce costs, lower carbon emissions, and improve tenant comfort in their homes, ADEY has launched it’s ProCheck system.
Housing providers could face labour-intensive and costly processes to maintain heating systems in their properties with the recent update to British Standard 7593:20191, requiring the concentration of inhibitors, additives and cleanliness of domestic water systems to be checked annually. To help reduce the cost and improve the efficiency of this work, water treatment manufacturer ADEY has launched a next generation water testing kit.
The new ADEY ProCheck system provides simple onsite analysis of water health in a heating system, generates an instant report, and enables engineers to take remedial action at the same visit, all using a test kit and Smartphone app.
Until now, engineers had to take a water sample and send it to a laboratory for in-depth testing, which takes between two to 20 days (dependent on the lab used) to get results. Once results are received the engineer must revisit the property if any element of the test required corrective action. Dip testing is a common alternative to check water quality while on site, but the limited results only measure the level of inhibitor in the system and are open to interpretation in regard to actions required. In addition, records of on-site water tests and results have to be manually recorded.
By using ADEY ProCheck, a maintenance engineer takes a water sample from the system water and carries out a dip test using the ProCheck strips supplied with the kit. This strip is positioned on a test card before being scanned to the app using a Smartphone camera — the scan is then analysed and verified. Much like a laboratory test, ADEY ProCheck looks specifically at the three main areas of concern: protective inhibitor levels, the level of corrosion through iron measurement and the dangers posed by the pH level present. A report is immediately created and the engineer can deal with quality issues identified there and then without the need for a second visit. Test results can be emailed directly from the app, and are automatically uploaded to a management portal where current and historical data from across the property portfolio can be viewed and extracted to identify trends.
Independent research commissioned by ADEY has found that 1.8 billion boiler breakdowns occur every year due to poor water quality, making it one of the most common causes of boiler failure. With the average cost of fixing a boiler breakdown at £2702, this cost could easily mount up for housing providers with a portfolio of stock.
By checking it yearly, housing providers can ensure compliance with the latest industry standards to extend the life of heating systems in their stock, reduce the cost of repairs, and help lower fuel costs for tenants. But it can take time to get detailed lab test results back, and the need to return to properties and rectify any problems identified can pose a challenge.
What’s more, current manual methods mean that engineers’ work cannot be tracked, and the valuable insights and trends offered by the test data over time across a housing stock are unlikely to be accessible.
ADEY ProCheck offers a higher level of accuracy than previous on-site dip-testing methods; whilst its use of connected technology streamlines the water-testing, results and work validation processes. Not only does this make engineers’ jobs easier on-site and minimises the amount of admin they need to carry out, but it also enables managers to monitor the health of their heating systems more closely.
The kit comes in a compact hard case and includes a testing pot, 25 test strips and 10 test cards. Purchase includes a year’s free subscription to the reporting management system where users can view all their historic reports.
- BS 7593:2019 – Code of practice for the preparation, commissioning and maintenance of domestic central heating and cooling water systems.
- According to independent research commissioned by Adey.
For more information, visit www.adey.com/procheck
