Latest News - Prestige Developments

28th Nove,ber 2011
Prestige Developments Group is proud to announce that from 28th November 2011 it has taken over the management of Country Homes (Anglia) Ltd based at Brome, Suffolk

Roy Gallagher has resigned as Director and Company Secretary of Country Homes (Anglia) Ltd and has taken a well earned retirement

Prestige Directors Silvano Geranio (Managing) and Eric Jones (Finance) have joined the Country Homes Board of Directors and will work closely with Steve Ekins the current Sales Director to ensure a smooth transition of duties over the coming months

Silvano Geranio and Eric Jones are founder members of the Prestige Group’s manufacturing company Prestige Park and Leisure Homes Ltd based at Kettering, Northants. That company was formed less than 5 years ago in 2007 and now employs 120 personnel

Prestige intends to use some of its experienced senior management team to help to increase output at the Brome factory, introduce efficiencies derived from the benefits of economies of scale and use its sales and marketing expertise to further establish Country Homes’ reputation as a leading player in the market place.
As always the Prestige ethos embraces quality, customer care and bespoke product build with a family orientated approach to business and looks forward to a long and profitable relationship with its new Suffolk partners

For and on Behalf of
Prestige Developments Group Ltd

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Make Sure Your Warm This Winter

It is this time of year when many Park Home residents start to worry about their existing heating system, the costs of fuel and whether the old back boiler will last another year.

Prestige Interior Developments have Corgi Registered Gas Engineers who are experienced in the installation of heating systems in Park Homes, and are offering the following advice to Park Home residents to ensure they are not left out in the cold this winter.

We would always advise when looking to upgrade your heating system that the old system be fully removed and replaced with a new High Efficiency combination boiler. To connect a modern HE boiler to an old system in our opinion is a false economy. A lot of the old systems in many park homes are a Fortic cylinder with gravity fed hot water. This old system always leads to sludge build up within the system which will migrate to the new boiler. This can sometimes be alleviated by power flushing the system before removal. However, this is always fraught with danger as any foreign matter left within the system will find its way to the new boiler and failure will occur. When the manufacturers attend to the fault, and the foreign matter is discovered, this will lead to a non warranty attendance and charges will ensue (which will be paid for by you, the home owner). With most of the systems being replaced the old pipework and radiators connected to the boiler will be put under a greater stress with a modern boiler (approximately 1.5 bar opposed to .3 bar). Therefore, any subsequent pipe work failures/radiator failures will be a chargeable item.

All is not doom and gloom, with your new High Efficiency system installed, be it natural gas or LPG, your fuel savings will be noticeable. Your home will heat up totally in approximately 15 minutes and after the boiler has shut down will stay warm for approximately 1 hour. Just think of all the fuel savings you will be making. On top of this, you will have mains pressure (the pressure that currently comes out of your cold tap) at your hot water outlets. Therefore no more shower pumps, no more trying to run a bath and having enough time to watch Eastenders to fill it. An unlimited supply of hot water when you want it. No more heating a cylinder full of water just waiting to go cold (wasting energy and money). Once the old cylinders have been removed you are also benefiting from having more room/storage space which is always a bonus especially if in the future you are thinking of having a new kitchen installed.

If you are thinking of having a new combination boiler system in your Park Home make sure the company quoting can offer you all of the following services:

What they are about to encounter ie asbestos, floor repairs, ceiling repairs.

Are they going to replace the whole system ie pipe work, radiators, boiler.
Are they going to replace existing radiator valves with thermostatically controlled valves (as recommended by Part L legislation)
Are they going to fully warranty their system/boiler for twelve months without the fear that they will be called back to a failing system
Do they offer a yearly maintenance contract
Will they always be at the end of a phone ready to attend any problem that does occur with the swiftness of reaction Prestige are renowned for.

Please feel free to call us for a no obligation quotation and to make sure our gas
engineers cover your post code area of the country on 01258 857130.

Controlling Condensation
It’s a nuisance in older homes, and is the result of the way park homes used to be made. Modern homes do not suffer in this way. However, if you live in an older-style home which is prone to condensation, Silvano Geranio of Prestige Developments has some suggestions for dealing with it.

One of the biggest problems that park home owners have to contend with, especially those living in older homes, is condensation. The expected life of a park home when they first became popular back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, was 20-25 years. However, there are still homes on parks today which are 35 years old – some even older. This is quite remarkable when you consider the way the homes were built then. They were originally introduced as an affordable alternative to bricks and mortar and were basically an adaptation of a caravan.

How a Park Home is Constructed In those early days they were usually manufactured either with aluminium exterior panelling or 6mm plywood, finished in a resin-based texture coating. Today the main structure (timber frame) such as stud partition, varies between manufacturers and the age of the home. As a rule, 45-63mm timbers are currently used. However, in the early days 32- 35mm tended to be the norm. At that time interior walls were clad with either 4mm hardboard or 4mm plywood, which usually had a predecorated finish. The wall cavity was insulated with either glass-fibre or low-grade white polystyrene. The cavity and the insulation were not wide enough or thick enough, with the result that condensation tended to form on the inside of the exterior panels. When heat escapes through a wall cavity, depending on the type of insulation used, the room temperature is reduced only slightly before it comes into contact with the exterior cladding where the temperature could be, for example, be zero degrees. The effect of this process causes condensation and moisture.

Prevention or ReductionWhat can you do? Two things – increase ventilation and/or insulation. This can be achieved quite simply, in the first instance, just by opening windows or installing extractor fans in the bathroom and kitchen if you don’t already have them fitted. Something else you can do is to aim, as far as possible, to keep the temperature throughout your home fairly uniform, even in those rooms which are not in regular use.

Equalise Heat If you have an older-style home which is prone to condensation, it is also possible to use other methods, such as the Prestige cavity wall specification or the Prestige cladding system. These involve the complete removal of the exterior wall panelling. The original insulation is left in place, but any that is missing or damaged is replaced. Then a 38mm x 25mm stud framework is fitted, complete with highquality insulation on top of the existing frame and insulation. Panels of 6mm exterior grade plywood, with a 177mm timber drip rail, are then fitted over the new studwork, which is sealed, primed and finally texture coated with a resinbased coating (as used in the manufacture of new homes). Making the cavity wider inside or outside will give greater warmth and at the same time slow down the escape of heat to the outside wall panelling, where the problem starts. The aim is to equalise heat from inside to outside with the help of insulation. Also, fitting breather paper behind the internal panelling will help reduce or eliminate condensation although this can be problematic when living in the home, especially as kitchens and bathrooms are generally on outside walls, so you would have to remove and refit wall-mounted items to enable access to the total exterior wall panels.

The summit of Mount Kilimanjaro was reached by two members of the Tingdene team on Tuesday, 10 February, and the Tingdene flag was raised there.

Ian Collier, right, sales director of Tingdene Developments and Mick Todd of Prestige Developments successfully reached the summit. They were part of a five-man team that set out on 3 February to climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa and the tallest free-standing mountain known to man.

To achieve this, they had to trek through forests, up steep tracks among tall grasses and trees and scramble over and around boulders and volcanic rock. Naturally, they camped out in the open and throughout the trek experienced temperatures ranging from very hot to well below freezing.

Three other members of the team, Nick Burgess, group sales and marketing director, Steve Walker, product development manager, both from Tingdene Homes, and Dr Segaren, friend of the team from Summerlee Medical Centre, successfully reached heights of 17,000ft, 14,000ft and 14,000ft respectively. The expedition was more arduous and challenging than anticipated despite months of preparation and training. Nevertheless the whole team was adamant that it was an experience difficult to repeat and hugely rewarding.

Response to the fund-raising has been brilliant with the total recorded to date reaching £13,000, with further pledges still to come in. The donations will be divided equally and sent to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, Leukaemia Research and the Romanian Operation. Anyone still wishing to make a donation should send it to:

Tingdene Homes Ltd
(PHHC Charity)
Bradfield Road
Finedon Road Industrial Estate
Wellingborough
Northants NN8 4HB