"Andy Hall" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 07:12:50 +0000 (UTC), peak man
wrote:

A friend at work tells me that it's entirely possible to service your own
gas boiler. He says all you have to do is clean the deposits from the
heat
exchanger, and that he's done this himself for the last 15 years on his
current boiler, without it giving him any trouble.

He's got a simple central heating boiler but mine is a combi (a 2-year
old Baxi). Is it still possible to do this? More to the to the point, is
it advisable?

TIA for any advice.



First of all, do a search in Google Groups for articles on gas fitting
in this group.

One of the significant points is that the law requires you to be (in
effect) a member of CORGI if you want to do gas fitting for others for
reward - i.e. as a job. It does not specifically exclude doing your
own work but requires you to be "competent" to do gas fitting, and
does not specifically define that.

You can take a look at Ed Sirett's gas fitting FAQ to gain an idea of
whether you consider that you are.

THe second point is that in addition to any checks that should be done
regarding the gas pipework (i.e. is it sound?), the manufacturer's
recommended service procedure should be followed.
This will be in the installation and service manual which you can
often download from the manufacturer's web site.

Cleaning is part of that, quite often, but there may be other things.
These checks may involve checking the firing rate, although that is
often do-able by running the boiler and timing the gas meter or a
pressure check at the burner. That requires a manometer which you
can buy for about £15. That is needed for a soundness test anyway.

Increasingly, the manufacturers are recommending flue gas analysis as
part of the set up and service test procedure for their products.
These cost from around £200. If you really wanted to do your own
servicing on an ongoing basis, you would cover the cost in a couple of
years.

Many so called heating men do not have these (these are usually plumbers
masquerading as heating engineers) and will not touch a boiler which
requires a flue gas analyser. Most regular boilers, like the Baxi combi,
only require the use a U tube tester, which a very cheap to buy, to test the
burner rate and test the pipe system for soundness.

A visual check on the flames is required to see if it is burning yellow.

Most services consist of cleaning the heat exchanger and a visual look at
the burner. Most service men will always ask this question first, "is there
anything wrong with it?" or "any smells from it . If the answer is no, then
they clean the heat exchanger, look to see if anything obvious is amiss and
see if the burner is burning yellow. If not burning yellow then they just
leave it. So, you pay for someone running a brush over your heat exchanger.

A top mounted burner condensing boiler doesn't even require the heat
exchanger cleaning, so having one of these serviced means he may just looks
at the burner and a visual check that nothing is amiss after asking the tell
tale questions to user.