Kevin: You’ve asked how the Recoheat was invented and to be honest it’s hard to pin down how it came about. My conclusion is that it was the result of a combination of having log stoves and open fires for many years, knowledge of some things like plumbing and ducted air heating, and of almost equal importance, a lot of non-knowledge.
As background, I’m from Padiham outside Burnley, but left when I was 16 to live and work in Australia and then Thailand. I was living with air conditioning more than heating, and the heating systems I was using were air-based rather than water-based. Probably as important, living in a Eastern culture got me into meditating every day, which definitely had a big bearing on how Recoheat came about!
When I returned to the UK and to Padiham, I trained as a plumber. I got into property development soon after and was doing up houses, working as a plumber and very involved in heating homes through our Lancashire winters.
At the time energy costs were rising dramatically, so I was using the stove more which got me to thinking about how much heat was lost up the flue and how to reduce that. It didn’t take long to have the idea for a coil, and one day I sat in front of the fire to draw out how it could be used to heat water for radiators. Once I had drawn out all the valves and pipework needed for steam, it was clear that it wouldn’t work. As I sat there with the flames and semi-meditative, the picture in my mind with all the stuff became animation like: the valves and pipe spun away leaving just air flowing through the coil instead of water. I remember saying out loud “it can’t be that easy”.
After that it was mostly a case of development through trial and error. The first coil was made with copper using a small fish tank pump. The result was so disappointing. Output temperature was only 36 degrees C. For some reason I decided to try a bigger pump. The result was that the output temperature increased: totally counter intuitive. Each time the pump size increased the output temperature increased all the way up through 500 C. The difference in warmth and fuel reduction was immediately noticeable. It cut my fuel use in half and the house was warmer. So, I tested it for a while and it was clear that it really did make a big difference with instant heat, less fuel, more spreading around home, turning GCH down or off, drying laundry: warmer.
I found a number for Pennine Systems (now Premier Flues) who are just down the road from me in Oldham and spoke to Ian Torr. I told him I had an invention for log stoves and that there were waves of hot air going up the stairs. He was extremely sceptical, but with amazing generosity he dropped in on his way to a meeting at 8 o’clock in the morning. He was in the house for 5 minutes and felt the warmth flowing out of the top of the door up the stairs. He told me I was making it all wrong and that he’d be in touch. As good as his word, he guided me on using the correct materials for it to last 10 years because it seemed to me that it had to be quality and last that long at a minimum. They have helped us so much and we still purchase our flue sections from Premier Flues.
From memory there were 6 different prototypes which were aimed at making the unit as small and retro-fitty as possible. I found that each solution created the next step to be solved until we had it working as efficiently as we could. ‘Form follows function’ was pretty much the mantra.
We made up a pretty uniform batch and started sharing on Facebook. Will was one of those early customers which was lucky, because a few months later I became so busy with my other business and family that I had to stop running Recoheat.
Fast forward five years and Will called to order a second unit for a new stove. I explained I wasn’t really doing it anymore. We got to talking and he ultimately took the helm. He said this was too important to let go. From that point Will has made such a difference in so many ways. It was really only at that point that we finalised and formalised the design to take into account keeping the coil clean as well as capturing the heat. He also created a manufacturing process so that we could make everything consistently and in a quality controlled way so that we could CE mark the whole thing to meet the regs for fitting in flue systems. We got the external testing done, and design protection and trade marks, and really turned it into a business at that point. I’ve absolutely loved it. I always saw it as a gift – it really did come to me in a moment of inspiration – and I want to make people warmer for less money because that’s one of the best ways you can help anyone!
Ah, the name. It took two years to arrive. Must have tried hundreds of names relating to hot air flow until watching a documentary one night and the woman said, the words ‘recovered heat’, Recoheat. Added bonus it had eco in the middle.
If your company has an interesting origin or back story and you think our readers would be interested, please get in touch.
