On Thu, 01 Dec 2005 17:30:04 +0000, Pilgarlick wrote:
Tricky wrote in message ...
Hi
I am getting desperate 8/
The 70s gloworm boiler in my kitchen broke shortly after I moved into
my new house from a broken pressure chamber. It had a tank upstairs.
I opted to get a combi boiler installed (Sime Format C 80) to save
space by removing the tank and save money on the gas. The sytem was
flushed at the time the boiler was installed and a chemical was added
to help with the flow of the water. This was Jan 05.
It has never worked properly since it was installed. The installation
man is not interested in sorting it out, telling me I need to ring the
Sime engineer. The Sime engineer has been out to look at it and found
that wire mesh, cylindrical filter on water entering the boiler was
clogged with black bits so the boiler couldnt tell when the water was
on or off. He rinsed the filter under the tap and put it back in.
The boiler seemed to work ok for about 2 days. He said I should get
the system flushed again. He explained this boiler has a filter to
stop the bits entering the boiler and breaking it. I would rather
have a boiler that works for a couple of years and then breaks than a
boiler that never works because the filter is permanently clogged 8)
I explained the above to a few plumbers and asked if they could quote
for flushing the system. They didnt seem to want to do teh job. Is
this a lowly job or one that doesnt cost very much to do? Will
flushing/power flushing the system clean it or just mean that the
boiler clogs after a couple of weeks rather than 2 days?
The boiler has a green led when working normally. The central heating
starts about 70% of the time. When it doesn't you still here a fan
noise but never get to the stage where you hear the clicking and a gas
flame appear in teh little window and the green light starts flashing
orange.(this means insufficient pressure according to the manual).
The pressure indictor drops from about 2 to 1.25 each time the boiler
attempts to start and then slowly creeps back up as the boiler warms
up.
If I turn the hot water tap on when the boiler is cold, the gas comes
on most of the time and heats the water up for the first 10 seconds,
then there is a boiling bubbling sound from teh boiler and the gas
cuts out. It then wont light again for a while.
If I turn the hot water on when the central heating has been on for a
long time I normally get a few minutes of hot water before the gas
cuts out.
My years warrenty runs on in January so I would like the get the
system flushed so that if it doesnt change I can go back to teh Sime
engineer. Can anyone give me some advice? Know a plumber willing to
flush central heating systems in teh Leeds/Bradford area 8) ?
The usual advice that I've heard oft repeated is to avoid fitting a combi
boiler to an existing system, reason being that which you are currently
experiencing. Many people do not pay adequate attention to the provision of
corrosion protection during the initial installation of a system, with the
result you are finding now.
Flushing may work but why not carry it out yourself, there is no mystique
about it. Buy yourself a can of flush and follow the instructions and don't
avoid getting rid of the flush properly (it's acidic), and make sure you use
anti-corrosion additive (it really does work) after the final flush.
Hope you meet with success.
Scale and sludge are the culprits and flushing and dosing the
system is the way forward.
However the problem lies with complete inattention to state of the
existing system when fitting the new boiler.
The installer in this case has cut a few corners too many. Note only that
the type of practice gives rise to the frequently posted remarks about
about how much boiler exchanges cost and how little time they take.
Proper installation, flushing, cleaning, adding TRVs, modern controls
and the paperwork make a typical heating system upgrade like this several
days work. Why should the rest of us have to work to counter popular
misapprehensions because of this fitter?
--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
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