Hi all

My colleague has an Ideal Icos HE 12 boiler that seems to have a
recurring problem with condensate discharge.

Approx 1 year after a replacement sump, he has again found a significant
blockage on the boiler side of the condensate trap. Having removed the
trap he had to use a screw driver to clear a black/silvery crud from the
discharge port on the sump.

Does anyone have experience of this kind of issue? Is this a boiler
design fault, or maybe an installation problem. Clearly not knowing the
install personally I cannot give details, but if there are certain
factors that are likely to cause this they could be investigated.


Thanks

Phil

thescullster wrote:
Hi all

My colleague has an Ideal Icos HE 12 boiler that seems to have a
recurring problem with condensate discharge.

Approx 1 year after a replacement sump, he has again found a significant
blockage on the boiler side of the condensate trap. Having removed the
trap he had to use a screw driver to clear a black/silvery crud from the
discharge port on the sump.

Does anyone have experience of this kind of issue? Is this a boiler
design fault, or maybe an installation problem. Clearly not knowing the
install personally I cannot give details, but if there are certain
factors that are likely to cause this they could be investigated.


Thanks

Phil

I've yet to try it but I read of people here (who I tend to trust)
advocating pouring water into the air intake (or flue gas sampling
point)to flush through the burner and out through the condensate drain.
Once the heating season is over, I'm tempted to have a go as I can see
the transparent condensate trap on my Worcester 28ri has got sediment in it.

On Thursday, 19 January 2017 12:41:00 UTC, Bob Minchin wrote:
thescullster wrote:
Hi all

My colleague has an Ideal Icos HE 12 boiler that seems to have a
recurring problem with condensate discharge.

Approx 1 year after a replacement sump, he has again found a significant
blockage on the boiler side of the condensate trap. Having removed the
trap he had to use a screw driver to clear a black/silvery crud from the
discharge port on the sump.

Does anyone have experience of this kind of issue? Is this a boiler
design fault, or maybe an installation problem. Clearly not knowing the
install personally I cannot give details, but if there are certain
factors that are likely to cause this they could be investigated.


Thanks

Phil

I've yet to try it but I read of people here (who I tend to trust)
advocating pouring water into the air intake (or flue gas sampling
point)to flush through the burner and out through the condensate drain.
Once the heating season is over, I'm tempted to have a go as I can see
the transparent condensate trap on my Worcester 28ri has got sediment in it.

exhaust, not air intake.


NT

wrote:
On Thursday, 19 January 2017 12:41:00 UTC, Bob Minchin wrote:
thescullster wrote:
Hi all

My colleague has an Ideal Icos HE 12 boiler that seems to have a
recurring problem with condensate discharge.

Approx 1 year after a replacement sump, he has again found a significant
blockage on the boiler side of the condensate trap. Having removed the
trap he had to use a screw driver to clear a black/silvery crud from the
discharge port on the sump.

Does anyone have experience of this kind of issue? Is this a boiler
design fault, or maybe an installation problem. Clearly not knowing the
install personally I cannot give details, but if there are certain
factors that are likely to cause this they could be investigated.


Thanks

Phil

I've yet to try it but I read of people here (who I tend to trust)
advocating pouring water into the air intake (or flue gas sampling
point)to flush through the burner and out through the condensate drain.
Once the heating season is over, I'm tempted to have a go as I can see
the transparent condensate trap on my Worcester 28ri has got sediment in it.

exhaust, not air intake.


NT

OOPS!! yes of course you are right!

crawls into corner....

In article ,
Bob Minchin writes:
wrote:
On Thursday, 19 January 2017 12:41:00 UTC, Bob Minchin wrote:
thescullster wrote:
Hi all

My colleague has an Ideal Icos HE 12 boiler that seems to have a
recurring problem with condensate discharge.

Approx 1 year after a replacement sump, he has again found a significant
blockage on the boiler side of the condensate trap. Having removed the
trap he had to use a screw driver to clear a black/silvery crud from the
discharge port on the sump.

Does anyone have experience of this kind of issue? Is this a boiler
design fault, or maybe an installation problem. Clearly not knowing the
install personally I cannot give details, but if there are certain
factors that are likely to cause this they could be investigated.


Thanks

Phil

I've yet to try it but I read of people here (who I tend to trust)
advocating pouring water into the air intake (or flue gas sampling
point)to flush through the burner and out through the condensate drain.
Once the heating season is over, I'm tempted to have a go as I can see
the transparent condensate trap on my Worcester 28ri has got sediment in it.

exhaust, not air intake.


NT

OOPS!! yes of course you are right!

crawls into corner....

Yes, I do this with my Keston Celcius 25 about every 6 months, having
had the condensate exit from the heat exchanger clog with similar
slime. It's never clogged since doing this. I pour in a pint quite
quickly so it will swill around the bottom of the heat exchanger and
hopefully wash away any debris there, and repeat when the first lot
has run away down the condensate drain.

I know the Keston C25 very well, having installed it, serviced it and
replaced the internal flue a couple of times, and I know there's nothing
in there which will come to any harm in doing this. I can't guarantee
that for any other boiler though - it's up to you to check in your case.
Don't pour in so much you fill the heat exchanger up to the burner or
ignition electrode, or you might have difficulty firing it afterwards
if the electrode insulator has been soaking wet. The Keston also has
a sensor in the U-trap to detect condensate backing up, and if that
gets wet, the boiler might refuse to start, although that hasn't been
a problem for me.

Yes, don't pour it into the air inlet - on the keston, it would run
over the mains transformer and onto the control boards! Must be into
the flue exhaust, i.e. following the path that condensate draining
back into the boiler from the flue would take.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On 21/01/2017 15:09, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Bob Minchin writes:
wrote:
On Thursday, 19 January 2017 12:41:00 UTC, Bob Minchin wrote:
thescullster wrote:
Hi all

My colleague has an Ideal Icos HE 12 boiler that seems to have a
recurring problem with condensate discharge.

Approx 1 year after a replacement sump, he has again found a significant
blockage on the boiler side of the condensate trap. Having removed the
trap he had to use a screw driver to clear a black/silvery crud from the
discharge port on the sump.

Does anyone have experience of this kind of issue? Is this a boiler
design fault, or maybe an installation problem. Clearly not knowing the
install personally I cannot give details, but if there are certain
factors that are likely to cause this they could be investigated.


Thanks

Phil

I've yet to try it but I read of people here (who I tend to trust)
advocating pouring water into the air intake (or flue gas sampling
point)to flush through the burner and out through the condensate drain.
Once the heating season is over, I'm tempted to have a go as I can see
the transparent condensate trap on my Worcester 28ri has got sediment in it.

exhaust, not air intake.


NT

OOPS!! yes of course you are right!

crawls into corner....

Yes, I do this with my Keston Celcius 25 about every 6 months, having
had the condensate exit from the heat exchanger clog with similar
slime. It's never clogged since doing this. I pour in a pint quite
quickly so it will swill around the bottom of the heat exchanger and
hopefully wash away any debris there, and repeat when the first lot
has run away down the condensate drain.

I know the Keston C25 very well, having installed it, serviced it and
replaced the internal flue a couple of times, and I know there's nothing
in there which will come to any harm in doing this. I can't guarantee
that for any other boiler though - it's up to you to check in your case.
Don't pour in so much you fill the heat exchanger up to the burner or
ignition electrode, or you might have difficulty firing it afterwards
if the electrode insulator has been soaking wet. The Keston also has
a sensor in the U-trap to detect condensate backing up, and if that
gets wet, the boiler might refuse to start, although that hasn't been
a problem for me.

Yes, don't pour it into the air inlet - on the keston, it would run
over the mains transformer and onto the control boards! Must be into
the flue exhaust, i.e. following the path that condensate draining
back into the boiler from the flue would take.

So what happens in driving rain?

On 1/19/2017 8:48 AM, thescullster wrote:
Hi all

My colleague has an Ideal Icos HE 12 boiler that seems to have a
recurring problem with condensate discharge.

Approx 1 year after a replacement sump, he has again found a significant
blockage on the boiler side of the condensate trap. Having removed the
trap he had to use a screw driver to clear a black/silvery crud from the
discharge port on the sump.

Sounds quite like a biological product (bacteria / funghi / yeast),
rather implies something wrong with the fundamental design, or perhaps
the installation.


Does anyone have experience of this kind of issue? Is this a boiler
design fault, or maybe an installation problem. Clearly not knowing the
install personally I cannot give details, but if there are certain
factors that are likely to cause this they could be investigated.


Thanks

Phil

In article ,
newshound writes:
On 1/19/2017 8:48 AM, thescullster wrote:
Hi all

My colleague has an Ideal Icos HE 12 boiler that seems to have a
recurring problem with condensate discharge.

Approx 1 year after a replacement sump, he has again found a significant
blockage on the boiler side of the condensate trap. Having removed the
trap he had to use a screw driver to clear a black/silvery crud from the
discharge port on the sump.

Sounds quite like a biological product (bacteria / funghi / yeast),
rather implies something wrong with the fundamental design, or perhaps
the installation.

My boiler normally runs at 45C flow and around 32C return, so
it's quite likely to be something that likes living in the
32C 100% humidity at the bottom of the heat exchanger, and
consumes the remains of any flies which are sucked into the
burner and cooked.

Does anyone have experience of this kind of issue? Is this a boiler
design fault, or maybe an installation problem. Clearly not knowing the
install personally I cannot give details, but if there are certain
factors that are likely to cause this they could be investigated.


Thanks

Phil


--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
My boiler normally runs at 45C flow and around 32C return, so
it's quite likely to be something that likes living in the
32C 100% humidity at the bottom of the heat exchanger, and
consumes the remains of any flies which are sucked into the
burner and cooked.
Andrew,
I presume that the flow temperature gets raised when heating the DHW?
Too late after choosing my boiler, I was surprised to find that it is
not capable of running at two different selectable flow settings.
Modifications are in hand!
I'd like to be able to run my boiler that low for heating but as it is a
retro fit to a system designed around a non condensing boiler, I don't
think the cost of changing radiators for higher output ones would be
justified simply in terms of fuel saving.

In article ,
Bob Minchin writes:
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
My boiler normally runs at 45C flow and around 32C return, so
it's quite likely to be something that likes living in the
32C 100% humidity at the bottom of the heat exchanger, and
consumes the remains of any flies which are sucked into the
burner and cooked.
Andrew,
I presume that the flow temperature gets raised when heating the DHW?

The boiler only does central heating, so no.

Hot water is from a multipoint instant water heater in this case.

Too late after choosing my boiler, I was surprised to find that it is
not capable of running at two different selectable flow settings.
Modifications are in hand!

The Keston isn't either, but as the temperature is set with a 100k
linear pot to feed a 0-5V signal to the control board for 32C-85C
flow temperature, it's dead easy to modify it. I did knock up a
replacement front panel which used a motorised pot driven by a PC
based home automation, but that's gone (it used a printer port and
games port to interface, and those vanished from PCs many years ago).
A long way down the to-do list is to build a new interface using a
raspberry pi.

I'd like to be able to run my boiler that low for heating but as it is a
retro fit to a system designed around a non condensing boiler, I don't
think the cost of changing radiators for higher output ones would be
justified simply in terms of fuel saving.

I installed the system for condensing operation - the house had no
central heating before that. I used a beta release Myson Java heating
calculator to work out radiator sizes, and it over-estimated even for
condensing operation (it turned out to have pessimistic U-values).
I had not intended it to work this low, but in retrospect, I'm really
pleased it does as the boiler works just about as efficiently as it
possibly can, and I suspect it's significantly increased boiler life
too.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Bob Minchin writes:
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
My boiler normally runs at 45C flow and around 32C return, so
it's quite likely to be something that likes living in the
32C 100% humidity at the bottom of the heat exchanger, and
consumes the remains of any flies which are sucked into the
burner and cooked.
Andrew,
I presume that the flow temperature gets raised when heating the DHW?

The boiler only does central heating, so no.

Hot water is from a multipoint instant water heater in this case.

Too late after choosing my boiler, I was surprised to find that it is
not capable of running at two different selectable flow settings.
Modifications are in hand!

The Keston isn't either, but as the temperature is set with a 100k
linear pot to feed a 0-5V signal to the control board for 32C-85C
flow temperature, it's dead easy to modify it. I did knock up a
replacement front panel which used a motorised pot driven by a PC
based home automation, but that's gone (it used a printer port and
games port to interface, and those vanished from PCs many years ago).
A long way down the to-do list is to build a new interface using a
raspberry pi.

I'd like to be able to run my boiler that low for heating but as it is a
retro fit to a system designed around a non condensing boiler, I don't
think the cost of changing radiators for higher output ones would be
justified simply in terms of fuel saving.

I installed the system for condensing operation - the house had no
central heating before that. I used a beta release Myson Java heating
calculator to work out radiator sizes, and it over-estimated even for
condensing operation (it turned out to have pessimistic U-values).
I had not intended it to work this low, but in retrospect, I'm really
pleased it does as the boiler works just about as efficiently as it
possibly can, and I suspect it's significantly increased boiler life
too.

I'm controlling mine with an Arduino chosen simply due to familiarity.

My boiler is still under warranty so wanted to avoid connection to the
control pot. Instead I am shunting the NTC thermistor that measures the
flow temperature. There is a passive Light Dependent Resistor in
parallel with the thermistor and the brightness of an LED shining on it
inside a black tube is controlled by the Arduino. 0 to 1mA in the led
gives all the range I need.

The boiler knob is left turned up high (about 90 of Max rotation)
equivalent to about 73 or 74 degrees flow and backed off to a minimum of
60 degrees using the LDR shunt.

The outside temperature is measured with a PT1000 sensor shoved into the
air intake section of the flue through a monitoring point. The outside
air temperature is used to set the flow temperature with adjustable
parameters.

It seems to have coped well over this rather cold weekend.

The next development will be to override the calculated flow temp with
an elevated one during DHW demand.

On 1/21/2017 3:14 PM, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
newshound writes:
On 1/19/2017 8:48 AM, thescullster wrote:
Hi all

My colleague has an Ideal Icos HE 12 boiler that seems to have a
recurring problem with condensate discharge.

Approx 1 year after a replacement sump, he has again found a significant
blockage on the boiler side of the condensate trap. Having removed the
trap he had to use a screw driver to clear a black/silvery crud from the
discharge port on the sump.

Sounds quite like a biological product (bacteria / funghi / yeast),
rather implies something wrong with the fundamental design, or perhaps
the installation.

My boiler normally runs at 45C flow and around 32C return, so
it's quite likely to be something that likes living in the
32C 100% humidity at the bottom of the heat exchanger, and
consumes the remains of any flies which are sucked into the
burner and cooked.

Good point, hadn't thought about flies.

Havn't had that problem with my Vaillant Eco-Tec, but I need to run my
flow temperature hotter than that, particularly in this weather. I have
a thermometer on the return, but its battery has gone at the moment.

Maybe if they get the design of syphon just right, it flushes enough of
any buildup to stay clear. Mine has a "long drop" into a waste pipe.

On 19/01/17 08:48, thescullster wrote:
Hi all

My colleague has an Ideal Icos HE 12 boiler that seems to have a
recurring problem with condensate discharge.

Approx 1 year after a replacement sump, he has again found a significant
blockage on the boiler side of the condensate trap. Having removed the
trap he had to use a screw driver to clear a black/silvery crud from the
discharge port on the sump.

Happened on my Worcester-Bosch. I believe it's the (aluminium
alloy?)inside of the boiler slowly being dissolved away. Was a problem
when newish but wasn't after a few years.


Does anyone have experience of this kind of issue? Is this a boiler
design fault, or maybe an installation problem. Clearly not knowing the
install personally I cannot give details, but if there are certain
factors that are likely to cause this they could be investigated.


Thanks

Phil


--
djc

(–€Ì¿Ä¹Ì¯–€Ì¿ Ì¿)
No low-hanging fruit, just a lot of small berries up a tall tree.