There are several ways that manufacturers can make it easier and quicker to install commercial boilers, as Tony Hogg (right), general manager of Broag-Remeha, explains
The more quickly you can complete a commercial boiler installation, the faster you can move on to the next job and the more profits you can make. This simple equation has prompted the more enlightened boiler manufacturers to come up with a number of ways of simplifying the installation of their products.

For example, a skid-mounted boiler package - effectively a prefabricated boiler house without the shell - makes installation far easier and faster. It enables the contractor to install the boiler package in hours rather than days.

Using a skid-mounted package, a typical boiler changeover simply involves removing one or more boilers to make room for the new units, wheeling in the replacement, and making the flow, return, gas and electricity connections. Skid-mounted packages come as a complete assembly with flow and return connections in the system, gas and power supply and they are ready to go. This prefabricated approach offers a range of benefits to the installer.

The complete boiler package has been checked and tested in the factory so the installer can be confident that it is complete, with no missing parts.

The boiler assembly is put together in a controlled environment which reduces its time spent on site (with all the safety, timesaving, and cost implications that this has).

Prefabrication has a dramatic positive impact on the performance of the boilers because the quality of the build can be tightly controlled in the factory.

Manufacturing the boiler package in the controlled conditions of a factory results in consistently high quality. Prefabricated construction also ensures conformity to the latest building standards and quality assurance principles.

Waste materials from the boiler manufacturing process can be recycled more easily in the factory. This, together with the fact that traffic movements can be significantly reduced, is better for the environment.

Prefabricated units make the installation process predictable and therefore easy to plan.

Off-site prefabrication of the boiler package enables fit-out services to be co-ordinated more easily. In typical commercial projects, different trades tend to fall over each other in a bid to get their own particular element of the project completed. Prefabrication allows the project to be planned in such a way that these conflicts do not occur.

Construction costs can be significantly lower because the construction process is faster, more predictable, of higher quality, less wasteful and safer.

Skid-mounted boilers also offer a further significant advantage - they have the smallest possible footprint. This, combined with the fact that there are no housings or running gear associated with the skid-mounted boiler, makes it possible to place a higher-capacity system in a smaller space.

As well as skid-mounting, many boiler manufacturers also supply cascade sets that simplify the connecting together of the boilers by providing a set of parts.

This allows heating engineers to connect the boilers in a single day rather than having to take three or four days assembling their
own connections with all the cutting and welding that this involves.