A1 Flues wins HVR Contractor of the Year Award

A1 Flue Systems has been named Contractor of the Year at the prestigious Heating and Ventilation Review (HVR) Awards in London.

We won the much-coveted award at a gathering of the leaders of the heating and ventilation industry at London’s Chelsea Harbour Hotel.

It’s a huge accolade for us, and our Director John Hamnett was delighted to have won the award for the second time in four years.

“The HVR Awards are one of the highpoints of our industry’s year, and to win such an important award, again, is such a huge honour for our business,” said John.

“This award encapsulates all the hard work and dedication of everyone who works at A1 to become market leaders in the design and manufacture of systems that aren’t just installed in the UK but also, increasingly, all over the world.”

Judges were impressed with the growth of A1 over the last 12 months, including the level of financial investment in new machinery and processes. They also commended us because nearly 10% of our output is exported, mainly to Europe and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – but also as far as the Falkland Islands.

We recently completed a six-month programme of investment totalling £250,000 in new machinery and introducing new processes at our 54,000 sq. ft. manufacturing plant to enable a reconfiguration of workstations and machinery to improve productivity and the manufacturing process flow. This has enabled us to improve our overall productivity by 30% – which, in turn, has led to the creation of eight new jobs and puts us close to achieving the 150-employee milestone for the first time in our history.

As well as working on high-profile projects, we work on a raft of ‘bread and butter’ contracts for schools, hospitals, hotels and office blocks. This year, for example, we completed work on a 41 m tall chimney for the University of East Anglia, which was worth £175,000. Another high point was the installation of the picture-postcard Arran Ferry Terminal on Brodick Isle in Scotland.

John was also delighted that the judges recognised A1’s continued commitment to setting the benchmark for the rest of the industry. We still remain the only UK company to achieve the CE Mark for an entire flue system – even though the standard became mandatory in July 2013.

“We set high standards for ourselves and push back the boundaries in the pursuit of excellence,” said John. “For example, we are still the only flue company in the UK to be Gas Safe registered – this for us is essential to understand the flow of exhaust gases from boilers, and we can’t understand why the rest of the industry isn’t!

“Regardless of what everyone else in our industry does, we’ll keep on doing things our way because we know it’s the right way.”