Home Boost Gets WRAS Approval

Hello again

Readers of plumbing’s best blog (that’s the one your reading, by the way), will already be aware of Home Boost, Salamander Pumps’ innovative solution for poor domestic water pressure and flow, not least because I’ve been banging on about how amazing it is. Ask Mike Sharrock, or Jethro Healey, if you need a second (and third) opinion!

Well now, Home Boost has been given WRAS approval. Home Boost was always WRAS compliant, but it’s great news that our game-changing product has now been given the WRAS ‘thumbs up’.

Just in case you don’t know, let me tell you just one more time: low water pressure is a daily source of irritation and inconvenience to countless people in the UK, but, as all plumbers and heating installers should know, it’s an offence, under The Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999, to ‘connect a pump or a booster drawing more than 12 litres per minute to a supply pipe; either directly or indirectly’.

The software built into Home Boost recognizes increases in mains pressure and flow and reacts by automatically reducing its assistance to the incoming mains. In other words, Home Boost is regulated so that it can’t exceed the 12 litre per minute rule. ‘Simples’, as the mother-in-law’s favourite cuddly toys might say.

BTW, what is about those bloody meerkats? (Having said that, it just occurred to me that it’s either them or that fat opera singing bloke. I suppose I should be grateful that the old lady doesn’t insist on taking a miniature version of him to her bed every night. Ughh!)

I know I see things through Salamander tinted spectacles, but for me nothing comes close to Home Boost when you’re talking ‘innovation’

Home Boost was a finalist in the Plumbing Industry Awards, (PIA), as I told you last time, because of its innovation and design.Maybe, if we’d bought a table at the awards do instead of a couple of seats, we might have done better. I know I see things through Salamander tinted spectacles, but for me nothing comes close to Home Boost when you’re talking ‘innovation’, especially when that innovation leads to new business for plumbers…

But that’s all history now. Winner or not (and getting nominated was as good as winning, it says here), the fact is that householders now have a simple, low cost solution to poor mains pressure and flow, and installers have another string to their bow, as it were. And now, with WRAS approval, installers can have added confidence in a fantastic product that’s easy to install, efficient to operate; is comparatively inexpensive to buy and now -did I mention this?- has full WRAS approval.

So, go forth chaps, into the homes of those afflicted by dodgy showers, of those whose upstairs tap doesn’t work when the downstairs tap is open, of those denied a combi boiler because the pressure just isn’t there; and solve those domestic horrors with a Home Boost!

Your customers will love you for it: although, thinking about it, who doesn’t love a plumber?

See you next time

Big Malc.

Every One A Winner!

 

Well, folks, we didn’t win the main prize, but a first PIA nomination for Salamander Pumps is a victory in itself.

Me? I think it was a fix, but then that’s me!

When we look back at the introduction of Home Boost and its subsequent impact in the years to come, it’ll be clear that this product was – is – a game changer. Who knows what the result would have been if we’d bought a table at the awards ceremony?

But I’m not bitter

Here are the guys at the do, in their gladrags.

Tony Graves, Diana Hunter and Gareth Richards

 

Always Do A Recce Before You Name Your Price

Hello again!

This’ll make you chuckle.I’ve posted a couple of interesting, nay, breathtaking photos below.
Be sure to read the 1st caption below the picture before going to the 2nd photo.
Look closely at the first photo take your time…then scroll down.

Look at the picture above and you can see where this driver
broke through the guardrail, on the right side of the culvert,
where the people are standing on the road, pointing….

The pick-up was traveling about 75 mph from right to left
when it crashed through the guardrail.

It flipped end-over-end bounced off and across the culvert outlet,
and landed right side up on the left side of the culvert,
facing the opposite direction from which the driver was traveling..

The 22-year-old driver and his 18-year-old passenger
were unhurt except for minor cuts and bruises.

Just outside Flagstaff , Arizona , on U.S. Highway 100

Now look at the second picture, below.

And the moral of this story to plumbers everywhere? Never cost a job unless you’ve actually visited the site… Other people’s pictures may be misleading!

‘Bath time was a lottery until we installed Home Boost’, says Mike Sharrock

At first glance, Lowscales Drive in Cockermouth is something of an idyll. It’s a residential haven of smart semis and bungalows, built in an elevated position and affording homeowners breathtaking pastoral views that take in wooded copses such as Simonscales Wood, Horseshoe Wood and Brick Kiln Wood.

But a problem lurks behind the neat exteriors and the Lakeland landscape… and that’s water pressure. In fact, water pressure, and water flow have been a problem on Lowscales Drive for ‘as long as anybody can remember’.

Mike Sharrock and his growing family are local residents, and he describes the problems incumbent with poor water flow and pressure as ‘a nightmare’.

‘Every time the water pressure dropped the tap just stopped, not even a drip’, he said. ‘The bath took thirty minutes to run on a good day, so bathing for a family of four was a lottery, a question of which day of the week it was and who’s turn it was on the bathroom rota.’

Then came news of a revolutionary new solution to the problem of water flow, a new ‘smart pump’ called Home Boost from Salamander Pumps that might solve the problem and Mike decided to find out as much about the new product as he could.

‘I researched the pump on the internet at first’, Mike said, ‘ and then I read feedback to see if was as good as the specification said. To be honest, it was the £100 introductory discount that finally swayed me to take the plunge.’

There are no more arguments over the bathroom and no more trickling water – Mike Sharrock

Mike was impressed that the installation of Home Boost was ‘quick and clean’ and that the large scale disruption to family life that had worried Mike failed to materialise. ‘There was absolutely none, what so ever, at all’, he said emphatically. ‘It was installed by a fitter from Stobbarts Plumbing Division in Workington in around an hour, which is amazing really, when you consider the difference it’s made to us. Stobbarts even collected the Home Boost from the local Plumb Center so I didn’t have to. The great service we received really was the icing on the cake.’

Mike Sharrock gets to grips with Home Boost

The difference that HomeBoost has made?  ‘There are no more arguments over the bathroom, for starters’, he said, ‘and no more trickling water. I suppose that some day we’ll take it for granted, like other people do; but until you’ve lived with poor water flow and poor water pressure, you can have absolutely no idea how inconvenient it is.’

With several patents pending, Home Boost is a truly innovative solution to domestic low water flow and pressure problems. Drive by a highly efficient BLDC motor, the computerised motor drive and high frequency FMPS power conversion ensures that the unit only ever operates when required and uses the absolute minimum amount of energy when doing so. The pump constantly monitors and reacts to water flow to ensure that it pumps to a maximum if 12 litres per minute from the water main, so complying with water fitting regulations (1999). The patented internal construction innovatively manages the waterway allowing the inlet and outlet of the centrifugal pump to remain in line with existing plumbing.

‘It’s no exaggeration to say that, for us, Home Boost is a life-changing product, in that it’s made a real difference to our quality of life’, Mike said.

So much so, in fact, that he’s decided to install another Home Boost at his place of work… well, almost: ‘Is that discount still available?” he joked.

Visit the Salamander Website? Certainly, click here.

Anybody Seen Simon Cowell?

Hello again and let me say right from the start that you are not going to believe this.

Four of our colleagues have decided to combine in order to create a showbiz phenomenon… That’s right, Richard, Richard, Richard and Richard have formed a…, (can I call them this?), an, er… ‘Boy Band.’ You heard it here first.

Apparently, they sound like a right shower.

However, they are in need of a band name… If you have any suggestions of the kind that will cause offense to neither customers nor The Boss, then leave them via the ‘Comment’ button. But remember, I get to moderate the comments, ok?

So if you see Mr. Cowell, let him know that there are showers out there that perform poorly, but with Home Boost, nobody need suffer anymore.

For example, here’s one poor performing shower about to get the Home Boost experience

The Four Richards… unless you can come up with a better name?

L-R: Richard Moffat, Richard (TK) Allan, Richard Morel, Richard Wright.

Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about suitable songs for Salamander’s new combo. Can you think of any more tunes they could cover? BTW, if you’ve only got time to check out the one link below, it has to be the number one link, ‘Pull ‘Em Up!’… A classic

Pull ‘Em Up! (Don’t Use A Plumber With His Pants Hanging Down) – San Diego Plumbers

Pump It Up – Elvis Costello (featuring Bono and The Edge)

Under Pressured – Queen and David Bowie

Time To Shower – Psychostick

Shower The People – James Taylor

Pump It – Black Eyed Peas

What The Water Gave Me – Florence and the Machine

Use The Force – Jamiroqui -

I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair – Mitzi Gaynor

Can You Feel The Force? -  The Real Thing

Shower Song – Phoebe from Friends

Cold Shower Tuesdays – Bowling For Soup

Plumbing Rap – Dimension 139

That’s it for now chaps, but remember, if you encounter The Hulk on the road, reach for the ear plugs.

Cheers, Big Malc

Vote NOW for HomeBoost in the PIAs!

Just a quick one: my tea’s on the table and Mrs Mac doesn’t much like to chew on cold parsnips, so I’ll be brief: Voting has begun in the PIAs – that’s the Pump Industry Awards, to you -  and the time has come for you to do your duty.

For a year now, you lot have been able to Ask Big Malc; but now, Big Malc is asking you; namely to vote, vote vote for Home Boost in the PIAs. It’s so easy that even you can do it, dear reader. It costs nowt, and you never know: your vote could tip the balance.

Help get Home Boost the recognition it deserves (and that’s me talking, not Salamander, he he he!) and cast your vote! You know you want to!

Click here to vote!

Thanks! And while I’m at it, I’m looking for more Home Boost stories.  Successful installations, life changing results… that sort of thing, There’s a free Bugati Veyron test drive for the sender of the first story I use…

Think on!

Bye for now

Big Malc.

Happy New Year! HomeBoost’s Up For A Major Award

Happy New Year to All My Readers!

Hope it was a good one for you?

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Here’s how to tell: an optimist stays up to see the New Year in.  A pessimist waits up to make sure the old one leaves… Do you think that’s why Mrs Malc gets up to wave me off of a morning? To make sure I’m really going?

Hmm.

Although I’m one of life’s optimists, the year started  badly for me, I must admit. I had a doctor’s check up and I was weighed as part of it. Now, the week between Christmas and New Year was never going to be an ideal time for a weight check, was it? I thought it was going well until the doc told me ‘your weight is perfect, you’re just three feet too small.’

Ho-bloody-ho.

Enough of the nonsense already. The great New Year news is that HomeBoost™ has been short-listed for a prestigious national award. Ta’ra! (That’s a fanfare, not a Lancashire way of saying ‘bye’).

Now, much as I’m tempted to say ‘I told you so’… I do feel vindicated though. I’ve been banging on about HomeBoost™ since before its launch. It’s amazing to think that was only four months ago: it’s picked up more press coverage than most plumbing products get in four years. And now it’s up for the Technical Innovation of the Year – Products category of the 2013 Pump Industry Awards. And quite rightly, in Big Malc’s entirely unbiased view.

Why am I not surprised? (Btw, lads, I may not be surprised but I am ‘made up’: in fact, all of us at Salamander are made up with this news!) I’m not surprised because HomeBoost™ has had a fantastic reception in the marketplace. Merchants, installers and end users are all swearing by it, not at it! And no wonder: there have been literally hundreds of enquiries into the office and thousands of web visits in the past first four months since we launched HomeBoost™. What’s even better is our  sales predictions for HomeBoost™ have all been exceeded spectacularly. I mean, ‘shattered’, ‘battered’; ‘decimated’, ‘annihilated’… I’m sure you’re getting the picture.

HomeBoost™: merchants, installers and end users are all swearing by it, not at it!

The good news is that you – that’s YOU, dear reader -  can vote for HomeBoost™ in the PIA. (That’s the Pump Industry Awards, not Pakistan International Airlines).

Voting opens at the end of the week, they tell me, so when that happens I’ll let you know and link to the voting web site from here. Poor long-suffering Mrs Malc is in for a hard time cos I’ll be tweeting and posting like a good ‘un to make sure all you HomeBoost™ fans out there get the chance to have your say.

So  vote, vote, vote!

 

Talk soon

Your mate

Big Malc

Caught on the job! T.K. gets Lucifer in Hot Water…

Hello again dear Salamander plumbers and shower installers and prepare yourselves for a shock.

Mrs. Malc reads magazines. Hardly a ‘write home’ event in itself, I agree, but there’s one particular periodical that she keeps close to her bosom. This magazine, evidently, likes nothing better than publishing pictures of celebrities in their, er, unguarded moments. You know, Kiera Knightly in her sweaty hoody after a run, (steady lads…) or that good-looking one from Coronation Street with her hair in a grandma scarf,  satchels under her eyes and no trace of lippy?

Well, I have to tell you that TK himself has fallen victim to the curse of the paparazzi. OK, that’s not strictly true: the culprit in his case was none other than our own Sean Macey. Who took the snap matters not though, lads. The thing is that now, for the first time, you can see how much trouble TK takes to look cool and in character when he knows there’s a camera around. And for the first time, you can see the reality of life on the road with TK when there are no cameras. Or at least when he thinks there are no cameras.

Here goes…

Washing ‘Lucifer’. A rotten job, but TK’s gotta do it

TK, made-up to be out with Lucifer?

Ah, TK. It’s all glamour, glamour, glamour, ain’t it matey?

Back soon

Big Malc

 

 

 

Force gets WRAS Approval

Hello again dear readers, and welcome again to my Salamander shower pumps world. It’s been a mad, mad busy time for us. Home Boost has taken off like a rocket, leaving us all craning our necks and wondering what’s the next record it’ll break. Nevertheless, that’s no excuse for leaving it so long, so back to business lads!

Home Boost Videos

We’ve up-loaded a couple of really useful videos that demonstrate how effective Home Boost is, and how easy-peasy it is to install.

The first video is on You Tube here, and the second one is here.

Have a butcher’s now and tell your mates to have a look-see, too. Thanks.

Force Gets WRAS Approval

It’s not all Home Boost at Salamander, in fact The Boss was getting pumped up the other day because our brass ended regen pump range ‘Force’ finally got the nod from the nice gentlemen at WRAS, which was the cue for celebrations of cup final proportions. I kid you not. You’d have been forgiven for thinking we’d found a cure for the common cold. (You can download the Force brochure here).

I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Force has always been WRAS compliant, hasn’t it? It’s not as if we’ve been pacing up and down, chewing our nails and waiting for the jury to come back, like refugees from a John Grisham book! I mean, we all knew we’d got a serious piece of kit (that’d make a massive impact on the market) long before the men from Del Monte said ‘yes’, for goodness sake. No offence, gents.

Do A Salamander

You know all about the Force range, don’t you? No? You should. Brass ended shower pumps make up a quarter of the market and that’s why the trade kept on and on at us to come up with a new pump that would ‘do a Salamander’ in a sector of the market that’s only going to increase in importance over the next few years.

Definition: to ‘do a Salamander’ is ‘to make a shower pump with the three must-haves: Quality, Reliability and Value’. And it’s not as if ‘not a lot of people know that’, is it? (We should call our next pump the QRV 1. In fact, I quite like that, I’ll mention it to The Boss).

Big Malc’s ‘Bluffer’s Guide to Salamander Force’.

Force pumps are available single or double brass-ended and for positive or negative head situations. There are three ranges with 10 models, Force 15 for boosting single shower performance to 1.5 bar, Force 20 for more powerful 2.0 bar performance and Force 30 developing 3 bar pressure suitable for the most powerful multi-function showers and for multiple shower outlets.

We had high hopes for the Force range when we brought it out, but it really has exceeded all our expectations. The trade recognises it as a properly competitive range that’s robust, installer-friendly and, most important I suppose, the right price. And personally, I don’t think we make enough of the fact that the whole range operates at under 60db, which makes Force the quietest brass ended range on the market.

We should shout about how quiet it is!

The other thing is that Force’s WRAS approval means that Salamander’s entire portfolio of regenerative type shower pumps is now WRAS approved: if you remember, the CT Range was approved in 2011.

A New Force in the brass-ended market

Big Malc’s ‘Bluffer’s Guide to Salamander’s CT range.

Listen up: the CT Range is still Salamander’s best selling line and it continues to go from strength. The main USP is its competitiveness, both in terms of price and performance, in fact the whole QRV. (We ‘did a Salamander’ on the CT range, too!) The whole range is continuously rated; in other words, you can run a CT pump for as long as you like. They’re designed to be robust and practical and they come complete with isolating valves on the inlet couplers and brand new, ‘hall’ effect switching for improved reliability.

So now you can hold your own in the locker room, so to speak, when the chit-chat turns, as it always will, to the subject of shower pumps..

CT 50 Pump with couplers.

Home Boost Heroes

Where are you lads? I want to hear from installers who have used Home Boost to solve customers’ problems with poor water flow or water pressure, like my mate Jethro did. Step forward and I’ll get our PR department to big you up. That way, people will see how amazing Home Boost is, and you’ll get a bit of publicity that might well lead to extra business. Can’t be bad! Take a look here and see what we did for Jethro.

So, don’t be shy, make yourselves known! Just leave a comment on here: in fact, here’s a bit of text you can copy and paste into the box:

Hello there Big Malc. I’ve installed a Home Boost, my customer is delighted and I’d like a bit of free publicity for my business. So order your PR department to get in touch, here’s my contact number / e-mail address…

(You have to add your own details, what am I, clairvoyant?)

That’s it from me lads, so it’s Vaya con-dios and may you never eat your tortilla alone. And think on: insist on Salamander, where QRV comes as standard!

And get your plumbing mates to check out Ask Big Malc. Send them a link or something.

Thanks

Big Malc

Jethro’s My First Home Boost Hero!

Hello again!

I’ve started a new collection. Not, alas, ‘Pumps Of The World’, as you might have expected, Mrs Mac won’t have the clutter. So, as Basil Fawlty once said, ‘that particular avenue of pleasure has been closed to me.’ (He was talking about betting).

Nearly as good as ’Pumps Of The World’ , I’ve started a collection of Home Boost success stories. If you’re an installer who’s fitted a Salamander Home Boost, in response to problems with poor water pressure or poor water flow, please get in touch and share your Home Boost Success Story.

If you haven’t yet had a chance to fit a Salamander Home Boost (and even if you have, come to that), please click the link to read about Jethro Healy, from Ecoflo Ltd in South London. He confirms that Home Boost is dead easy to fit and very effective.

His customer liked it too!

So, if you’d like me to publicise your Home Boost success, think on: Get In Touch!

More soon, keep smiling

Big Malc.