When the boiler room comes out, the heating still has to stay on

A full boiler room replacement is one of the biggest projects a building can go through. New high-efficiency boilers, new pumps, new pipework, a new plate heat exchanger, modern controls — the kind of upgrade that pays back for decades. But for the few weeks the existing plant is being stripped out and the new system installed, there’s one obvious problem: the building still needs heat.

For schools, hospitals, care homes, factories and commercial premises, going without heating — even for a few days — isn’t an option. Classrooms have to stay warm. Wards have to stay compliant. Production has to stay running. That’s where temporary boiler hire does its quietest, most useful work.

Boiler Hire UK was set up to solve exactly this problem.

How temporary boilers support a plant replacement

A typical full plant replacement runs in phases — isolate, decommission, strip out, install, pressure test, commission, hand over. Done well, the project is invisible to the building’s occupants. Done badly, you end up with a cold building, an unhappy client, and a programme that slips.

Temporary boilers bridge the gap. We deliver a self-contained, packaged boiler — pre-piped, pre-wired and ready to go — connect it into the building’s existing distribution, and run heating from it while the permanent plant room is being rebuilt. When the new system is commissioned and proven, we disconnect the temporary unit and recover it from site. The building stays warm throughout.

For the boiler room replacement at a school recently completed by our sister company Mellor & Mottram Mechanical Services, this approach is exactly what allows a project of that scale to be delivered without disrupting school operations.

The Boiler Hire UK range

Every site is different, so flexibility matters. Our temporary boiler range covers:

• 90kW — ideal for smaller commercial properties, individual buildings or single-circuit systems.
• 250kW — our most-specified size for schools, care homes, churches and mid-sized commercial premises.
• 500kW and above — for larger schools, hospitals, factories and multi-circuit systems with headers, distribution pumps and calorifiers.

All units run on gas, oil or dual fuel, and are designed to integrate with single or multiple circuits — so whether the building has one straightforward heating loop or a complex distribution arrangement, we can match the load.

The boilers themselves are packaged for rapid deployment: they can be towed, pushed, or craned into position on sites with limited access, which matters more often than you’d think. School boiler rooms in particular tend to be in inconvenient corners of inconvenient buildings.

Why temporary boilers should be planned, not panicked

Most people first hear of temporary boiler hire in an emergency — a boiler has failed, the building’s freezing, and someone needs a packaged unit on site by tomorrow morning. We do that work every day, 24/7, 365 days a year. But the more valuable conversation often happens earlier.

If your building is heading for a planned plant replacement — whether next month or next summer — building temporary boiler hire into the programme from day one changes the project entirely:

• The main contractor can strip out the existing plant in one clean phase rather than working around live boilers.
• The new system can be commissioned properly, with time to flush, balance and test, rather than rushed back online.
• The client never has to choose between a faster install and a warm building.
• The cost of temporary heat is known upfront, not a panic line item added halfway through the works.

For schools especially, this matters. The summer holidays are short, the heating season starts hard in October, and there’s very little tolerance in the programme for a delay. A temporary boiler de-risks the entire project.

Sectors we support

We’ve been supplying temporary heat to UK businesses and institutions for over two decades. Typical clients include:

• Schools, colleges and universities — both for emergency cover and planned plant replacements.
• Hospitals, care homes and healthcare buildings — where compliance with heating and hot water requirements is non-negotiable.
• Churches and heritage buildings — particularly during the autumn and winter when sudden failures cause real disruption.
• Factories, warehouses and industrial sites — where process heat is part of the operation, not just a comfort factor.
• Local authority and public sector buildings — where downtime affects services to the public.

Wherever the building is in the UK, we can have a temporary boiler on site quickly — fully installed, commissioned and supported by our engineers.

Planning a plant replacement? Talk to us early.

If your building is due a new boiler room — or you’ve just had a survey that says it should be — speak to us early. The earlier temporary heat is built into the plan, the cheaper, smoother and lower-risk the whole project becomes.

Make an enquiry → Call 01782 274537 — 24/7, 365 days a year.And if you also need the permanent plant replacement designed and installed, our sister company Mellor & Mottram Mechanical Services has been delivering commercial heating systems across England and Wales since 1970.