Hot Oil

This one is more of a plumbing issue rather than one of design, but the two are inter-connected, sort of, sometimes. My early years were in a small showroom in Hertfordshire with a builders/plumbers merchant out the back, so I do have some experience of the “down and dirty” side of the business. The issue of central heating systems in older properties raises its head from time to time when designing a new bathroom. Often the client will not want the expense or inconvenience of extending the CH system into the bathroom. The obvious solution is an all-electric heated towel rail of sufficient size. These can be supplied direct from a manufacturer as a complete ready-to-go sealed unit, but the downside is that the range of rails available is extremely limited and rather more functional than they are beautiful. The alternative is to choose a normal heated towel rail and convert it to all-electric usage. This requires one hole to be used for an electric thermostat and all other holes to be capped off. The radiator is 90% filled with a combination of thermal oil and water, leaving a small air gap to allow for expansion. This is not something new, nor is it technically complicated. However when I was trying to source some of this oil for a colleague last week at short notice, I was appalled at the lack of knowledge at the 14 plumbers merchants I phoned. One shop near the Edgware Road in London normally had it but were out. Two more knew of it but only ordered it in. The other eleven “businesses” didn’t have it, didn’t know about it, didn’t care about it, and certainly didn’t care about me. Some were friendly but useless, a few were curt, and two were just downright rude. Certainly none offered to find out about the oil for me. Let’s face it, we Brits are largely rubbish at customer service. In my industry, the client is king. On the high street, the “client” is a just a customer who will be treated OK as long as it’s easy and nothing goes wrong. At the first sign of a problem, the commercial barriers are raised at double-quick time. So if you are looking for proper shopping experience, get yourself out to Heathrow and on a jet to New York.