Our Alpha combi boiler has been playing up - the radiators get hot when the hot water runs, and recently the pressure has been low, and turning on a hot tap doesn't fire up the boiler to heat the water. From looking on the internet, we'd self-diagnosed that it could be a diaphragm/diverter valve problem.
We found a heating engineer through the ratedpeople website and he had good reviews.
He said that it could have been bits of debris clogging up the valve and diaphragm and the first course of action is to power flush the system to see if that removes the debris and fixes the problem. (The boiler must be 11 years old and has no service history at all, the previous owners of the flat could not provide any.)
We have 7 radiators in the flat and he powerflushed them at a cost of £600 with a 'boiler service', and topped up the boiler. It didn't fix the problem, and indeed the pressure was more like 3 bar and the radiators were full of air and not warming up at the top. When I bled them all, the pressure is back down to 0 bar but the CH does seem to still be working.
Now he wants to come back and install a condensing combi boiler (and bring a carpenter to make the boiler cupboard in our living room taller so the condensing pipe can drain along a pipe that goes through a wall and into the back of the sink in the kitchen.) Price £1,800.
I don't think we're going to get him back, and I think we've been a bit naive and have 'been done' by a heating engineer doing an expensive (and not very back-breaking!) job that wasn't really necessary?
It would be great to get a more informed opinion about what's happened. I don't want to leave a bad review if its unwarranted, but it sounds like it might be?
Thanks very much in advance,
Bob
We found a heating engineer through the ratedpeople website and he had good reviews.
He said that it could have been bits of debris clogging up the valve and diaphragm and the first course of action is to power flush the system to see if that removes the debris and fixes the problem. (The boiler must be 11 years old and has no service history at all, the previous owners of the flat could not provide any.)
We have 7 radiators in the flat and he powerflushed them at a cost of £600 with a 'boiler service', and topped up the boiler. It didn't fix the problem, and indeed the pressure was more like 3 bar and the radiators were full of air and not warming up at the top. When I bled them all, the pressure is back down to 0 bar but the CH does seem to still be working.
Now he wants to come back and install a condensing combi boiler (and bring a carpenter to make the boiler cupboard in our living room taller so the condensing pipe can drain along a pipe that goes through a wall and into the back of the sink in the kitchen.) Price £1,800.
I don't think we're going to get him back, and I think we've been a bit naive and have 'been done' by a heating engineer doing an expensive (and not very back-breaking!) job that wasn't really necessary?
It would be great to get a more informed opinion about what's happened. I don't want to leave a bad review if its unwarranted, but it sounds like it might be?
Thanks very much in advance,
Bob