Lock-In: Troubled Waters

We named this webinar “Troubled Waters” because of the common water-related issues our two partners products solved, the biggest villain being Limescale.

You might have heard about Combimate before, if not it could be the solution, you never knew existed – more about that in a bit.

We also spoke to Bristan, the UK’s number one supplier of taps and showers, and an LNPG partner that we’ve had at arm’s-length for a while – for us, pulling them in for a webinar was about closing that distance.

Hard Vs Soft

Limescale builds up in the pipework of over 60% of the UK. For those living in hard water areas, the list of victims builds up fast, chalky deposit block narrow pipes and coat the heat exchangers in kettles, showers, and even boilers.

So, you would presume that if you’re not in a hard water zone, you’re in the clear? Try again.

Soft water can be just as bad for your property, instead of leaving deposits which can block the pipe work, soft water can corrode the pipework and cause little pin hole leaks to spring.

We’re often asked at LNPG whether we have manufacturer support on water softeners – and the answer is yes, but also no.

Because Combimate isn’t a water softener.

Combimate

We’ve been partnered with Combimate for a while, and armed with the basic knowledge this had given us, we let Matthew Dixon – Technical Sales Manager at Cistermiser – loose to take us through the science behind Combimate.

The Combiphos crystals are the key to the whole system. The Combiphos are little transparent balls coated in phosphate. When introduced to a water supply, the phosphate begins to dilute and coats the inside of any metallic surface –preventing the buildup of limescale without the removal of calcium or magnesium (the elements behind limescale) from your water supply.

The Combimate system is available in either 15mm or 22mm fittings, meaning it can be fitted to your whole-house supply, or just to look after your boiler.

When installing a Combimate you’ll only need the one tradesperson, as the system itself doesn’t require electrics or drainage, which is handy to save the hassle of lining up appointments and save some cash.

And the icing on the tap is that Combiphos crystal refills are only needed annually and can be done in under 5 minutes.

Turning on the Taps

For the second act of the webinar, it was time for Bristan to take the stage.

We’d only spoken to them that week, but due to a late cancellation from another partner, we knew there was only one place to turn to fill in a last-minute gap with a manufacturer we could trust.

Bristan are a well-known supplier to the market and have been making waves in the brassware industry for over 40 years – the perfect partner to line up when offering upgraded options to your bathroom suites.

Quality, Quality & Quality

Bristan haven’t stayed at the front of the pack for over 40 years by accident – part of the secret is their attitude toward innovation and continuously pushing for perfection in their products.

Quality assurance is no joke to Bristan: they put their equipment through some rigorous testing. While most companies outsource their testing to a purpose-built facility; Bristan have an in-house UKAS approved lab built to research, test and certify all their products.

An example of this rigorous testing is what they do with their taps. Bristan have taken it upon themselves to pump through 25 times the standard water pressure through their products. This is to ensure they can withstand pressure abnormalities. But it doesn’t stop there, the team also work around the clock turning the taps off and on 80 thousand times to make sure they can whatever your tenants throw at them.

We’ve mentioned WRAS approval before on our webinar series – it’s the gold standard certification for water products in your house. As you’d expect, Bristan have a comprehensive list of WRAS approved products in their portfolio.

The Offering

The real reason we wanted to push Bristan on so quickly, however, was to get them to spill the beans on the newest products to be added to LNPG’s contract-supported range.

Bathrooms have been flying through the membership since we launched with Wolseley just over two years ago – puns aside, changing to Wolseley from our previous supplier was literally like turning on a tap for members’ spend. Overnight, the account grew to a monthly spend of £40k plus and has gone on to triple in size ever since.

With great size comes great responsibility – and the focus now has been on bolstering the quality of products on offer, aiming to provide branded upgrades on the standard Nabis stock.

Warren wasted no time in getting to the Bristan offering: four additional ranges, ranging from Essential to Best, will soon feature in our Handpicked Bathroom Suites brochure – so look out for that very soon!

And that is your lot for this episode, you can expect to see Bristan make an appearance on our website soon as an official partner.

In terms of Combimate, you can find everything on their partner page here.