Archie Kidd Very High Efficiency Boilers

[Rob Foster]

I am collecting an archive about Archie Kidd for purely historic reasons. If anybody has any anackdotes or experiences of this remarkable designer
Or have ever had a go at his products please reply, they are the lister Diesel engine of central heating boilers

Rob Foster aka centralheatking

 

[Pickwickpick]

Just been doing a bit of googling as I'd never heard of Archie Kidd, what an amazing engineer/inventor! It goes to show how its rarely the better quality/most innovative & effective products that gain market dominance. Would be very interested to have a read of your archive on him once you've got it off the ground.

 

[Chrisjones.7976]

I am collecting an archive about Archie Kidd for purely historic reasons. If anybody has any anackdotes or experiences of this remarkable designer
Or have ever had a go at his products please reply, they are the lister Diesel engine of central heating boilers

Rob Foster aka centralheatking

Hello. I have a model 1 gas dating from 1989. I've fixed it a few times. And made a modification by insulating the boiler face as the heat inside used to cause motors, gas valves, pumps etc to fail as they exceed their rated temperature. Archie & the son never believed me even when I sent a plot from a temperature probe on the motor casing. Since then it's been extremely reliable. Chris

 

[Kiddowner]

I am collecting an archive about Archie Kidd for purely historic reasons. If anybody has any anackdotes or experiences of this remarkable designer
Or have ever had a go at his products please reply, they are the lister Diesel engine of central heating boilers

Rob Foster aka centralheatking

Hi Rob,
I'm a Kidd boiler owner in Yorkshire. I had dealings with the son who took over the business when his father died. Great boiler but getting anyone to service it is a problem. Kidd wanted to train people themselves and the servicing schedule in the manual is fairly exacting. A local CH firm installed the system but Kidd Jn. came with an engineer to commission it. And the local CH firm didn't want to do the training since there weren't enough Kidd boilers around to make it worthwhile. So while the boiler has been going happily since 2009, it's only had fairly perfunctory services.
So, a great boiler but a poorly organised business as far as service to customers was concerned. Maybe Prince Charles in Highgrove gets his three serviced by the old Kidd engineers in Wiltshire, but Yorkshire customers are poorly served. But if anyone knows better, please post the information!

Cheers,
Kiddowner

 

[Robert Gordon]

does anyone have a contact in Scotland who can service my 20 yo Kidd oil boiler ?

 

[Chrisjones.7976]

does anyone have a contact in Scotland who can service my 20 yo Kidd oil boiler ?

they're pretty simple, if you've got a bit of a mechanical background you can do most important stuff yourself. take the cover off the top of the main body, remove the boiler lid, pull out the swirler things in the boiler tubes, rub a wire brush up & down the tubes to remove dirt, reassemble that bit, take the burner out, a few bolts & a gas connection. get your hand through the hole & clean the dirt out of the bottom, put that back together. then the economiser, remove the front cover & the plate behind it, check condition inside & clean out any crap in there, check the condensate drain is clear, clean if necessary also make sure the one on the flue is clear as well. reassemble. if nothings been touched on the air mixture adjustment that shouldn't need anything doing to it.

 

[Verity Kidd]

Archie Kidd was my Grandfather so I have read your (old) posts with great interest. Adam Kidd was my Uncle, my dad (also an engineer, still alive) used to work with Archie at the Kidd farm machinery plant in Devizes back in the 70s. Interestingly my daughter is now applying to study engineering at Uni so it must be in the genes. I didn't know my Grandfather well as we lived up north but the stories my Dad tells are of his incredible way of thinking, able to solve problems, a true inventor. He designed a wind turbine in the 60s, designed a new rail carriage that was far smoother than the current ones even today, had talks with Great Western I think but it never got off the ground.

 

[steve-o]

There was a brilliant heating engineer called Chris up in North Yorkshire who last worked for Tate before he sadly passed away recently. He was a fountain of knowledge and loved our Kidd boiler, saying to earlier points how well made, simple and reliable his was.

Ours was installed in 1992 and still going strong. Sadly almost impossible to find anyone who can service it now so we have been told to find a replacement, but we have a single pipe system so might be a complete overhaul 😵

 

[Dcbrannan]

Who do you use to service yours now? We’re in Tadcaster