Hi folks
I'm just wondering if someone might be able to cast any light on to a strange incident that occured with our 6-yr old Halstead Ace High boiler this evening.
Up until now the boiler has been working fine, and this evening I turned the heating on and the burners fired up as expected. However after about 15-20s there was a loud clunking noise and then a sizzling, hissing sound that rapidly increased in volume. I looked outside and there was an unusual amount of steam coming out of the flue, and I also noticed that the power light on the boiler was flashing on and off (the user manual suggests that this indicates a problem with the flow switch).
By this time the sizzling noise was getting louder so I cut the mains power then noticed that white smoke, or possibly steam, was coming out of the top of the boiler on the left hand side at the top of the unit.
Initially I feared the worst and thought that the boiler was emitting smoke, so the fire brigade were called out and we waited outside for them to arrive, in the meantime I cut the gas supply. Fortunately the smoke/steam emittance stopped and we were given the all-clear to go back inside.
Later on a chap from the gas board arrived to check for gas leaks, apparently this was a precautionary measure. Whilst here he powered-up the boiler again and which seemed to work absolutely fine, and has been working fine since!
I'm obviously concerned about this incident as I've got no idea what went wrong and I'm uncertain as to whether it will happen again. I'd prefer to get the boiler checked out, but first I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone has experienced this behaviour and, if so, what the cause turned out to be.
EDIT: Just to add that the heating system pressure is normally 0.8 bar when cold and approx 1 bar when the heating has been running for ~5 mins. Is 0.8 bar a bit low?
Apologies for the long post, I wanted to offer as much info as I could.
Thanks
Chris
I'm just wondering if someone might be able to cast any light on to a strange incident that occured with our 6-yr old Halstead Ace High boiler this evening.
Up until now the boiler has been working fine, and this evening I turned the heating on and the burners fired up as expected. However after about 15-20s there was a loud clunking noise and then a sizzling, hissing sound that rapidly increased in volume. I looked outside and there was an unusual amount of steam coming out of the flue, and I also noticed that the power light on the boiler was flashing on and off (the user manual suggests that this indicates a problem with the flow switch).
By this time the sizzling noise was getting louder so I cut the mains power then noticed that white smoke, or possibly steam, was coming out of the top of the boiler on the left hand side at the top of the unit.
Initially I feared the worst and thought that the boiler was emitting smoke, so the fire brigade were called out and we waited outside for them to arrive, in the meantime I cut the gas supply. Fortunately the smoke/steam emittance stopped and we were given the all-clear to go back inside.
Later on a chap from the gas board arrived to check for gas leaks, apparently this was a precautionary measure. Whilst here he powered-up the boiler again and which seemed to work absolutely fine, and has been working fine since!
I'm obviously concerned about this incident as I've got no idea what went wrong and I'm uncertain as to whether it will happen again. I'd prefer to get the boiler checked out, but first I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone has experienced this behaviour and, if so, what the cause turned out to be.
EDIT: Just to add that the heating system pressure is normally 0.8 bar when cold and approx 1 bar when the heating has been running for ~5 mins. Is 0.8 bar a bit low?
Apologies for the long post, I wanted to offer as much info as I could.
Thanks
Chris
