Central heating system leakage - need advice please

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Dear forum members,

I have an unknown leakage in the central heating system - boiler pressure drops from 1.5 to 0.8 bar every day and I need to refill the boiler (Worcester 28i junior) with water daily.
There is a plastic key that needs to be inserted and withdrawn every time to let water in, and I worry about possible damage to the system due this frequent mechanical intervention. I'd rather keep the key in all the time and just rotate it when refilling is needed.

My question is - is it safe to keep the key permanently inserted into the boiler, especially when it's working?

Many thanks
 
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The key wearing out is not an issue. Adding water all the time is - the result will be massive corrosion and the system being totally destroyed.
The cause of the water loss must be identified and fixed.
 
How long has this issue been occurring?
Have you had any carpets/flooring laid recently?
Any other recent works in the premises?
 
Tie a plastic bag over the end of the Pressure relief discharge outside, and leave for 24 hrs. See if this collects any water, to rule out the simpler things first.
 
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flameport, dilalio, and Jaleak - thanks a lot for your replies.

Let me briefly explain the background:
1. This boiler was installed 18 month ago. Before the house had an old condensation boiler with tank at the loft. That was disconnected and new copper pipes installed from the new boiler to the radiator system.

2. Until this January we were using it daily (only for hot water during summer, of course) - and I never checked the pressure until we had a service couple weeks ago. The service guy has refilled the water up to 1.5 bar (he didn't tell what It was before though) and asked me to keep an eye on it. In couple days after he left I checked and the pressure was down to ~0.7 bar (nearly red sector). I refilled it to 1.5, but in 2 days it came down to the same ~0.7 and does so nearly every day.

3. Yesterday I had a gas engineer from insurance company - he examined it and said that the vessel is OK, so the leakage must be in the system. He also checked all the radiators and found green stuff (copper oxide) on several pipes coming up and down from some radiators and, although he didn't find any obvious dripping, he said they must have leaked in the past.

To my question "why I don't see any pooling anywhere on the floor and why boiler pressure didn't reduce to zero since the boiler was installed?" he replied that the leakage could be in the pipes well below the floor (~1 m down; we have an 1928 house with the base made of wooden joists on top of ground base ~ 30 inch down) and it's fully absorbed by the soil underneath.

He also said during summer when boiler isn't used, chlorine in the water can self-seal small crack/loose joints in the pipes, hence pressure doesn't reduces to 0. Finally he said that changing condensation boiler to combi boiler was not a good idea, cos combi boliers add a lot of extra pressure to the systems.

As long term solutions he offered:
1. lifting up the floor and looking for & fixing leaking pipe(s)
2. installing new pipes from boiler to the radiators through the ceiling.

1 is out of question (cheaper to buy a new house)
2 - we might consider, but not immediately and it will also be expensive and messy, as in order to connect the radiators together we'd need to drill holes through all the walls in the house and we just did a full refurbishment (wood flooring, plastered/painted walls etc.) less than a year ago.

The key wearing out is not an issue. Adding water all the time is - the result will be massive corrosion and the system being totally destroyed.
The system is in water all the time, so why would adding new water cause more corrosion?


How long has this issue been occurring?
Have you had any carpets/flooring laid recently?
Any other recent works in the premises?

As I mentioned before - the low pressure was noticed ~2 weeks ago.
The house was fully refurbished July-Sept 2014- new boiler installed by British gas, new engineered wood flooring, walls fully stripped off, re-plastered and painted; ceilings also stripped off, re-plastered and painted.

Also, we previously had leakage in pipes connecting kitchen with bathroom, please see this thread:
//www.diynot.com/diy/threads/abnormally-high-and-unexplained-water-consumption-in-house.419304/
but that was fixed by installing new pipe work from kitchen (where the main water inlet into the house is) through loft into the bathroom.
Again this was done like 10 months ago.

Tie a plastic bag over the end of the Pressure relief discharge outside, and leave for 24 hrs. See if this collects any water, to rule out the simpler things first.
Yesterday the engineer increased pressure temporarily up to 3 bars and checked the Pressure relief outside - it wasn't dripping at all, so the leakage is unlikely through that. But I will do as you suggest and report back here.
 
The pressure within a sealed central heating system (such as a combi) is much greater than in a gravity vented system, which you had before. It is a common problem that pipework which, for years, withstood the lower pressure of a gravity fed system would fail once sealed and pressurised! If the leak(s) are on the system, the only way to remedy this issue is to locate and repair each leak and then pressurise and leave for a period of time to ensure that no other weak spots go on to fail!
You could try adding a couple of doses of a proprietary leak sealer but, as has been mentioned many times before on this forum, that is a shot in the dark and is by no means ideal, even if it works!
Sorry, but that's the bottom line!
 
The system is in water all the time, so why would adding new water cause more corrosion?
The system water should contain corrosion inhibitor, which has now leaked away and been replaced with plain water.
Water from the mains contains dissolved air, the oxygen part of which will react with the steel radiators to form rust. Every time you refill, more dissolved air is being added so that more rust can form.

The time from new system to totally rusted beyond repair will vary, but adding fresh water every day can result in radiators being rusted through in just a few months.
 
If the leak(s) are on the system, the only way to remedy this issue is to locate and repair each leak and then pressurise and leave for a period of time to ensure that no other weak spots go on to fail!
Sorry, but that's the bottom line!
We spent 5k only to lay a new floor! Lifting it up without damaging is not possible. Then stripping and throwing out all underlay, lifting the wooden base floor, lifting the joists, crawling through all the house (~80 sq. m!) looking for leakage and fixing it, testing, then replacing the joists, the base, installing new underlay and new flooring - it's like re-building house a new. I am afraid that's not an option.
 
The system water should contain corrosion inhibitor, which has now leaked away and been replaced with plain water.
Is it possible to diy refill the corrosion inhibitor?
[/QUOTE]

Sorry, I still didn't get an answer on whether it's safe to keep the plastic key in while boiler is working? And if yes, shall the white arrow on the key be aligned with open padlock or closed one?

Here is the Worcester video on refilling explaining how to re-fill the boiler (It's hard to explain if you didn't see this type of boiler before)

The aligning procedure is between 0:50 and 2:00 min of the video (no need to watch the whole thing). Our boiler is exactly the same.

Thank you
 
As above, you need to find and fix the leak or re-pipe, otherwise the corrosion in the system caused by constantly adding fresh water and diluting the corrosion inhibitor will clog up your radiators and kill your new boiler (which won't have a warranty if there's corrosion in the system). From a mechanical point of view there's no reason not to keep the key in - it's there as a means of complying with Water Regulations, which say that a filling link should not be permanently connected between the mains and the heating system

You can indeed DIY refill the inhibitor. Something like this every couple of months should keep the levels high enough to compensate for the water you're losing and adding back in again
 
If the leak(s) are on the system, the only way to remedy this issue is to locate and repair each leak and then pressurise and leave for a period of time to ensure that no other weak spots go on to fail!
Sorry, but that's the bottom line!
We spent 5k only to lay a new floor! Lifting it up without damaging is not possible. Then stripping and throwing out all underlay, lifting the wooden base floor, lifting the joists, crawling through all the house (~80 sq. m!) looking for leakage and fixing it, testing, then replacing the joists, the base, installing new underlay and new flooring - it's like re-building house a new. I am afraid that's not an option.

Woah there! It's not my bloody fault!
 
You can indeed DIY refill the inhibitor. Something like this every couple of months should keep the levels high enough to compensate for the water you're losing and adding back in again
Will 0.5 liter be enough for 6 radiators?
Do I need to drain water from all the radiators or just close one of them, add the inhibitor thru the venting port? Any precautions while doing this?

Thank you
 
We spent 5k only to lay a new floor! Lifting it up without damaging is not possible. Then stripping and throwing out all underlay, lifting the wooden base floor, lifting the joists, crawling through all the house (~80 sq. m!) looking for leakage and fixing it, testing, then replacing the joists, the base, installing new underlay and new flooring - it's like re-building house a new. I am afraid that's not an option.

To have done that may now seem to have been a little short sighted!

How much space is there below the floor?

If accessed could someone crawl around there?

You don't need to remove all the floor, just inspection holes large enough to look around with a torch. Usually one near each end of a rad is enough. How many you need to make before you find it is from just one to perhaps double the number of downstairs rads.

There are clever ways to add scents to the rad water and search for the scent.

A thermal imaging camera is non intrusive and will often find a leak like that from above the floor without disturbing anything.

Tony
 
You can indeed DIY refill the inhibitor. Something like this every couple of months should keep the levels high enough to compensate for the water you're losing and adding back in again
Will 0.5 liter be enough for 6 radiators?
Do I need to drain water from all the radiators or just close one of them, add the inhibitor thru the venting port? Any precautions while doing this?

Thank you
That's technically enough for 10 rads but you'll need to replace it regularly to keep the levels correct. A test kit would be useful - this one will do 25 tests. Just close one radiator, drain about a litre out then squirt the inhibitor in
 
How much space is there below the floor?

If accessed could someone crawl around there?

House consists of 2 parts – old part and extension. Old part has ground base with joists and ~0.5-0.6 m underneath, so should be sufficient to crawl. Extension has concrete base, and 2 out of 7 rads total.

How many you need to make before you find it is from just one to perhaps double the number of downstairs rads.
It’s a bungalow so all rads are downstairs.

A thermal imaging camera is non intrusive and will often find a leak like that from above the floor without disturbing anything.
Tony
That’s an interesting option, Tony. I searched youtube but couldn’t find a sensible video on infrared water leak detection, especially under the floor. If you know some – could you please post a link to the video here? Many thanks
 

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