For a care home in Poole, heating maintenance rarely reaches the daily agenda until the morning a boiler fails and residents are left without hot water. Lilliput House care home, in the Lilliput area of the town, has spent more than 20 years making sure that morning never comes.
Rated ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the home depends on warm, hot water and safety systems that never lapse. That duty matters most because the residents relying on it are among the most vulnerable.
Behind that reputation sit two long-serving managers. Rosie has five years in post, and Laura has eleven, and both wanted a heating partner that matched the home’s own standard. What follows is how Asbury Heating has partnered with them since 2023.
Testimonial
“The worries of remembering when things are due are taken away with Asbury. They let us know when things are due to be booked in. We don’t have to worry about the compliance. We know anything that needs doing is done, and it’s done on time and done well . . . We always know Asbury is just at the end of the line, day and night. The engineers that come respect our residents, respect the home, and clean and tidy and move everything as they find it.”
– Rosie, Registered Manager, Lilliput House Care Home
Watch the Case Study Video
Hear from Rosie and Laura at Lilliput House on what working with Asbury Heating means for their residents and their day-to-day compliance.
The Challenge
Running a care home means carrying responsibility that never pauses. Heating, hot water and safety systems sit inside a web of regulation, from CQC inspection to Regulation 15 of the Health and Social Care Act, which requires premises to be safe and well maintained. Meeting that standard needs a partner who works ahead of problems, not one who appears after them.
Lilliput House needed a heating partner to address three pressures at once:
Compliance and legionella risk managed before deadlines are due.
Engineers who respond at once when warmth or hot water fails.
Engineers who respect resident privacy, dignity and routine.
Each pressure ties back to the welfare of vulnerable residents and to the home’s standing at inspection. A reactive contractor cannot meet that brief. The home needed reliability built into the relationship itself.
The Solution
Our engineers provide Lilliput House with a planned maintenance relationship built around the realities of a care setting.
24/7 Availability
Heating and hot water faults cannot be left to wait in a care home. Asbury engineers are reachable day and night, with Lilliput House treated as a priority response site, so the team always has someone to call and a fast response when it matters most.
Proactive Compliance Scheduling
Rather than leaving the home to track due dates, Asbury flags servicing and safety checks before they are due. The weight of remembering deadlines is lifted off the management team.
Hot Water & Heating Continuity
Residents have hot baths and showers whenever they need them, and the home stays warm throughout the year. Continuity is treated as a welfare requirement, not a convenience.
Compliance Management
Boiler servicing, gas safety, legionella-related checks, and TMV servicing are carried out on schedule and documented. Where gas-tightness testing and purging are required, our engineers carry them out as part of the same compliance routine. The home can show inspectors a maintained system rather than a reactive repair log.
Underfloor Heating & Long-Term Plant Planning
Underfloor heating throughout the home is maintained as part of the same planned schedule, so residents are not left relying on a system no one checks. Asbury also factors plant room lifecycle planning into the relationship, flagging ageing equipment or rising repair costs before they fail, so the home can budget for replacement rather than absorb the cost of an emergency.
Respect for Residents
Our engineers work discreetly around residents, leave each space clean and tidy, and return everything as they found it. Privacy and dignity are maintained on every visit.
The Outcome
The result is a home that runs on dependable systems and a management team with less to carry. Where the challenges were compliance, response and conduct, the relationship now answers each one.
For Lilliput House, working with Asbury delivers:
Warm rooms and hot water available on demand, all year-round.
Compliance checks completed on time and fully recorded.
A team that’s no longer tracking servicing or safety deadlines.
Underfloor heating and plant room equipment maintained and monitored.
Engineers who protect resident privacy and dignity on every visit.
A contractor reachable day and night, with no waiting on hold.
None of this depends on the home chasing its contractor. The systems work, the records are ready, and the people on site are trusted. That is what a maintenance relationship should produce.
Achieve Reliable Heating & Compliance for Your Care Home
If your care home still relies on calling a contractor each time something fails, compliance and resident comfort sit at the mercy of response times you cannot control. With heating, hot water and safety checks managed proactively, warmth becomes dependable, and inspections stop being a scramble.
Asbury Heating are a commercial heating specialist trading since 1962, Gas Safe and OFTEC registered, with engineers experienced in regulated care environments. Our CareGuard programme offers tiered compliance and maintenance support built for care home operators, from single sites to multi-home portfolios, and reflects the same reliability Lilliput House has come to depend on.
Get in touch for support or call 01202 745189 to arrange a site visit and review how your current heating and compliance cover measures up.
