Brown water

[mikeey84]

Hi, I'm refitting my bathroom at the moment, so turning the water off quite a bit.

When I do, I leave a tap open downstairs and then open one upstairs to drain the system (combi boiler) so I don't get wet when cutting pipes.

When the system refills, I get brown water for a few seconds from my hot tap.

Is this normal? Or a symptom of something I need checking on my boiler?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Is this normal? Or a symptom of something I need checking on my boiler?

What make/model of boiler?

 

[mikeey84]

What make/model of boiler?

It's a valient ecoFIT I think. It's also in the loft, so right at the top of the system is that makes a difference

 

[Roddy Young]

Brown water from hot taps could be related to the expansion vessel if a pressurised system. Check if water comes out of the air top up valve.

 

[mikeey84]

I thought the expansion vessel was just for the heating side. Learn something new everyday!

I'll take a look

 

[Johntheo5]

Some combis come with DHW preheat which do have a small EV but doubt that one supplied with the boiler would suffer from this.

 

[CBW]

I thought the expansion vessel was just for the heating side. Learn something new everyday!

I'll take a look

Don’t bother, highly doubt it’ll be that on a combi.

 

[mikeey84]

I thought it could be the air that gets into the system stirring up crap, but not sure exactly where the crap could be coming from, and why it's now happened 3 times in a couple of weeks

 

[mikeey84]

Just to add to this, after another round of plumbing today, the boiler now refuses to heat water.

No error codes, just doesn't fire up when tap turned on.

Tried the purge program, but no joy

I'm guessing all the cr@p that is making my water brown has buggered something up, or is symptomatic of something falling apart.

 

[CBW]

It could be the crap, but it would need to be on the cold. Doubt it’s an airlock, and purge relates to the heating circuit. What type of work has been carried out? Have you opened up the stopcock fully?

 

[mikeey84]

Apparently the purge on my boiler has a hot water and heating purge. Least according to the icons and the manual I found online

Mainly rerouting pipes, installing stop cocks.

Pressure and flow are normal, as is the cold, just no heat

 

[CBW]

Apparently the purge on my boiler has a hot water and heating purge. Least according to the icons and the manual I found online

That refers to the plate heat exchanger circuit, but it’s still the heating water.

Pressure and flow are normal, as is the cold, just no heat

Are you saying no heat, as in it’s not heating water, or no central heating?

 

[mikeey84]

Heating works, no hot water from taps. Pressure and flow of water from the taps is as I would expect.

Stopcock fully open, new pipework traced to ensure we haven't swapped hot and cold over.

Can hear water flowing through boiler

 

[mikeey84]

That refers to the plate heat exchanger circuit, but it’s still the heating water

I did wonder how it purged the hot water system!

 

[CBW]

If you know how to access the D codes, check D35 and D70.