East Midlands reduce costs with MagnaClean

East Midlands Housing Association (EMHA) manages a diverse portfolio of more than 8,000 properties in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. The properties are occupied by families, single people, the elderly and other individuals requiring additional support.

EMHA is in the fourth year of a boiler replacement framework partnership with J Tomlinson Ltd of Nottingham who introduced the idea of magnetic filtration to the association.

“A heating engineer at Tomlinson told me about ADEY's MagnaClean Professional having seen it demonstrated, explaining that it was a full flow magnetic filter designed to collect 100% of the suspended black iron oxide within a heating system,” recalls EMHA Property Refurbishment Officer, John Thornley.

“After seeing it demonstrated ourselves, we could immediately see the huge potential benefits of installing MagnaClean to extend the life of the boilers that we were installing. Plus, it was quick and easy to install, at a reasonable price, with no ongoing running costs, so the economic advantages looked as strong as the environmental benefits.”

J Tomlinson began to install MagnaClean filters for EMHA in May 2010, and by March this year they had fitted more than 120 filters. These have been installed alongside new Ideal Logic Combi A-rated boilers in a variety of housing types, from one-bed flats to three-bed detached houses.

As well as fitting them on brand new heating systems, the filters have been installed as part of heating upgrades where the existing boiler is more than five years old.

“MagnaClean offers such a strong solution for those responsible for large volumes of housing stock,” explains Tony Swift, North Regional Sales Manager at ADEY. “It's proven to reduce emissions by up to 6%, the filters can be installed on any age of system at low cost, and reduce the number of maintenance call-outs caused by damaged boilers and ineffective heating systems. Independent research has proven it's the most effective magnetic filter on the market.”

In addition to installing MagnaClean filters, J Tomlinson has introduced EMHA to ADEY's MagnaCleanse process which gives the entire system an effective cleansing flush prior to fitting the filter. This has created additional cost-saving opportunities, as Bev Thorp from J Tomlinson explains. “Previously, we'd send two men to flush a system and that would take the best part of a day. Then we would need to send a sample of system water away for testing, but four out of six were failing, so we'd need to return and re-flush the system.

“But since moving over to the MagnaCleanse process we've been getting 100% passes. The flush is complete in just a couple of hours removing all the black iron oxide sludge with a single pass, so there's no need to return and repeat failed tests.”