peter's blog

Our BBQ hire service in London and Home Counties is proving to be very popular. We have taken another batch of brand new Tough Grill gas BBQs from stock and added to our hire fleet of the famous Cinders TG160 Slimfold. Both the Cinders TG160 and SG 80 have been a very reliable work horse over the years and are still the market leaders. Our dedicated maintenance team work hard to keep up with repairs on our entire BBQ hire fleet. Servicing and repairing the Cinders TG160 Slimfold and SG80 is a full time job replacing the malleable iron burners, stripping down, cleaning and re-building the BBQ units of our own, other hire companies, and outside caterers. You can hire either BBQ from our London Depot or Southern Depot

We received a call from a customer requiring several LPG water boilers. We confirmed we had stock and sent an urgent courier to deliver the water boilers. I subsequently realised they were destined for the Extinction Rebellion: London Climate Protest. As a leading UK event hire company it is important that we remain impartial when supplying equipment to a variety of organisations and Companies where or not we agree with them.

We recieved an emergency call from Will Dickens of Cool Hurst Vinyards this week. Will was keen to see if we had an outside heater hire solution for a week or so. To offset a potential severe frost, forecast to hit the vinyard on Sunday night. Will had an idea that creating a convection air flow around the vinyard could stay off a potential catastrophic crop disaster causing the buds on the vine crop to be severely damaged. We set to work and made a plan. Will asked if we could provide 10 heaters spaced out over 100m powered by a Honda Generator that we hire.

We are currently carrying out Research and Development for Off Grid Hybrid stored Event Power for hire.

Solar panels are dropping in price. Mono Crystaline solar arrays are now cheaper and more energy efficient. The cost of on grid Kilowatt hours has increase by 50% in the past 24 months, and the cost is set to rise even further. In fact today we hear another 10% increase in the pipeline.

The energy used to generate event power is inefficient due to a high proportion of energy being wasted from friction, the combustion heat generated going out of the exhaust stack, and long periods of idling causing wet stacking which has to be cleared by increasing generator load to raise the temperature to burn off excess carbon inside the engine. Not dissimilar to burning out a catalytic converter, regeneration on a combustion engine after leaving a built up area.

Our client is a sub-contractor for British Rail and Railtrack. Their brief was to maintain an on location hire the battery backup power for the signalling on a railway line in the South of England from Friday through to Monday morning during the day and night. The signalling equipment was close to residential properties which meant the residents enjoyment had to take into account along with minimal disruption during the installation and de-rig . We dispatched an Ultra Silent 20Kva Denyo road tow generator with a 500L bowser with enough fuel to run longer if required.

Our client is well known in caterer circles operating in the South of England. Their client is a British Airline operating a fleet of Airbus 340 airplanes both passenger and cargo. We were asked to hire an event kitchen the include the following :-

3 x 20 Rack HGV20 LPG Ovens – 7Kg Turkey Butterflies cook Time 90 minutes

5 x Williams MHC16 Hot Hold – 100 x 100/65mm GN Pans Holding Vegetables & Turkey

1 x Hobart Pressure Steamer – 100 Portions Cooked Carrots in 90 seconds

12 x Victor Servery with Sneeze Screen – 36 BM Wells holding 100mm GN Pans

1,000 Lubiana Dinner Plates – Warmed in 10 x Hupfer Lowerators

18/10 Polished Cutlery – 6,000 Items Cutlery

Various other items too numerous to mention.

A lowerator is a heated cabinet with a plinth fitted inside which is attached to a series of springs, The amount and size of the springs balances the weight of the china plates being warmed. Warmed plates are taken from the top of the stack, The stack rises giving you convenient plate access on demand. A heating element is situated under the stack of plates which heats the plates.

More expensive Hupfer lowerators we hire have a thermostat which ensures your plates are warmed to an optimum temperature. With cheaper lowerators you have to manage the temperature the plates achieve. The very bottom plates nearest the heating element reach higher temperatures, so always fill with extra plates as the very bottom plates can be very hot..

We were back setting up the kitchen in the Ice Café and the Bratwurst Hut today at Winchester Cathedral this week. This installation comes with access and parking challenges. Thanks to Stuart’s Towing Services for providing a trailer to unload and porter equipment through the ancient Archway and thanks again to Chris Hughes from Event Kitchens for setting out LPG gas manifolds and issuing a Gas Safe certificates. Don’t forget the 2018 Christmas Market opens from 17th November to 20th December. Winchester Cathedral Christmas Market opening times every day from 10am - 6pm and from Sunday - Wednesday, 10am - 8pm from Thursday to Saturday.

The question what size heater I need to hire for my marquee, barn, warehouse or gazebo can be challenging to understand and calculate.

Note – heated air emitted from these heaters is not adjustable.

Let us look at each structure from the smallest situation to help you understand.

Gazebo Heater Hire – a gazebo is a description used by many to identify a small tent 3m x 3m or of similar ilk. My understanding is that a gazebo is a shelter with open sides used mainly for a rain or sun shelter. Consider infra-red heating clean burn Fire 25 or an electric infra-red heater.

Providing banqueting for groups of 150 - 500 guests or more, requires a considerable amount of planning, not only offering a doable menu but how to deliver a larger than normal quantity of food within a short period of time. Various catering equipment manufactures offer high volume cooking equipment which help produce great results. We look at providing a traditional Christmas dinner in a catering marquee. What do we need and what pitfalls are we likely to encounter. Let us look at the equipment and labour required in each option.