Nottinghamshire-based A1 Flue Systems — a specialist in the design, manufacture, installation and maintenance of commercial and industrial chimney, flue and exhaust systems — has secured projects totalling more than £1.2 million in the last six months after winning a number of contracts from schools, colleges and universities.

The company (www.a1flues.co.uk) has completed more than 100 projects throughout the UK, and its largest order — placed by a red-brick university in the South West of England — was £250,000, but the average cost for a school or college to have a new flue system designed and installed for its boiler system is around £5,000.

Company director Tracy-Jane Duncan-Moir, said: “Projects for schools, offices, hotels and other public buildings are our ‘bread and butter’, and we have a constant flow of them on the go in our estimating, engineering and manufacturing departments.

"They sit alongside large projects such as skyscrapers and other high-profile contracts — one early last year for a new hospital in Ireland was worth more than £1.75 million.

"The high-profile ones are great for business because they demonstrate our level of expertise — and this is often the reason that we keep winning awards — but projects for schools in particular remind us of the breadth of buildings across the UK that need our flues.”

Sports stadiums have featured prominently in recent months for A1; it has installed flue systems at the Premier League football grounds in Wolverhampton, Burnley and Huddersfield and one in the Scottish Premiership (Heart of Midlothian), as well as at Epsom Downs Racecourse and Headingley, which hosts test matches and is home to Yorkshire County Cricket Club.