Percy Picacity wrote in
:

cynic wrote in
news:b575265a-b2c0-41db-b7d9-

m:




You can buy a Regin fibre washer pack with a couple of 1/2" 3/4"
and 1" flat washers for a couple of quid. Clean the metal joint
surfaces thoroughly and if the threads are scaled wire brush them
and put some silicon grease on the threads and the inside of the
union nuts so they will tighten without overstressing the things.
The pipe ends should lie flat on the protruding threaded part of
the heat exchanger. If they don't you should loosen the other
ends
of the sections so they will. When the Heat exchanger is
tightened
then retighten the other ends and all should be fine. It is wise
to keep an eye on these joints and nip up if required before any
weep develops into a leak.

Very helpful, thanks.


The Firebird Combi is a decent unit but
the heat exchanger requires monitoring. In hard water areas it
sometimes pinholes between the domestic and the sealed system
side, however this is not a regular event by any means.

John


That's interesting, because I've got a slow leak somewhere. I
suspect the boiler was put together by an amateur (FSVO) because
pretty well every joint on it and the central heating circuit has
leaked at some point since I moved in. I presume the only way to
test it is to disconnect the hot water side and wait a long time,
or
is it better to take it off and pressurise it in some way? I'll
have
to check that when I redo it. It's a soft water area, however.


Further to this problem, the next time a heat exchanger union leaked
I dismantled the relevant piping. With 3 unions coplanar, the
fourth was displaced 3 cm axially and 1cm radially, obviously too
much to be taken up by adjusting the other joint on the pipe.
Adjusting a straight bit of pipework to one of the pumps largely
rectified it and I could reassemble it with reduced asymmetrical
forces on the unions and new, hopefully not so soft, washers. So
far, so good.

Thanks to all for the help.


--
Percy Picacity