pressure falling in combi- when to ask for help
- Thread starter annemarie
- Start date
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Ok folks. I have a Gloworm boiler... and can't remember specific time but the plumber engineer didn't think Gloworm was a great type.
He went outside and saw that the water was coming out of the PPV. Now, I had looked at this one evening but was looking too high on the wall in the dark and hadn't noticed this pipe lower. We sort-of guessed we hadn't found it as the pipe we saw was much bigger than 15mm.
So what caused this valve to go. Well be thinks that it may be die to over-filling (we have no reason to think we did overfill it). The boiler seems to be working OK when it is refilled. He asked me to look out for the pressure rising when it is one but it doesn't. How could it when this valve is operational?
The part costs £26 and the call oout yesterday was £42 (although he was only there 10mins- arrived at 5pm) and fitting it will be £30.
Does all that and his diagnosis seem reasonable?
Is it likely that this really will be the end of the problem?
Thanks a lot
AM
He went outside and saw that the water was coming out of the PPV. Now, I had looked at this one evening but was looking too high on the wall in the dark and hadn't noticed this pipe lower. We sort-of guessed we hadn't found it as the pipe we saw was much bigger than 15mm.
So what caused this valve to go. Well be thinks that it may be die to over-filling (we have no reason to think we did overfill it). The boiler seems to be working OK when it is refilled. He asked me to look out for the pressure rising when it is one but it doesn't. How could it when this valve is operational?
The part costs £26 and the call oout yesterday was £42 (although he was only there 10mins- arrived at 5pm) and fitting it will be £30.
Does all that and his diagnosis seem reasonable?
Is it likely that this really will be the end of the problem?
Thanks a lot
AM
No.
No.
As you imply, they leak for a reason.
Important to remember is that once they've let water through, they keep leaking because dirt gets stuck on the valve sealing surfaces.
Expansion of the heated water is supposed to be taken up in the Expansion Vessel , aka Pressure Vessel, which was precharged with air when the boiler was new. Over time the air goes and is replaced with water when you fill the boiler from the filling loop. Eventually there's no air to squash so the pressure goes extra high on heating up. At about 3 bar, the Pressure Relief Valve lets water out. You may not have seen that, and now that the PRV is leaking you're right, the P won't go very high.
SO the first thing to do is check the pressure in the PV with enough water let out of the system to NOT be pressing on it. It would be pumped up, while allowing for the water in the PV to get out.
Then you need a new PRV
Then you fill the system to about 1 bar.
A boiler bloke should normally carry an air pump and the normal range of PR valves, They're a component which doesn't have to come from the manufacturer, most would say, as they all open at 3 bar. OK if he wants to fit the glow worm part, look for Glow worm/Hepworth on the packet!
Most would NOT carry all the different manufacturers' specific PRV's - so a second trip is justified I suppose.
But make sure he DOES check/pump up the PV pressure - look for him to be letting water out - you CANNOT do it without doing that. That should have come in the first visit - presumably you get half an hout at least with a callout!
Thanks ChrisR- that all makes a lot of sense... more than I can say for my last message (maybe I should learn to reread them before posting).
I was surprised that he didn't do anything apart from look at this valve... and that he suggested the pressure might still rise with this vavlve open.
However, I guess that he might not gave checked the pressue in the expansion vessel yesterday becuase that would have meant draining the boiler etc and since it couldn't have been fixed until we had the new part, I might have been left with a non-working boiler until it was fixed.
I have his phone number. Should I phone and say that I definitely want him to check the pressure in the expansion vessel in advance.... or wait until he comes to the house?
You're right that the call-out includes 30 mins labour. I pointed this out yesterday and he agreed that he would add the 20mins labout onto the next call.
He has already told me that the system will be drained through the ppv to allow him to change the ppv. I presume the pressure in the pv will be checked and air refilled if necessary (I think this is very likely) at that time. Hopefully this is accounted for within the quote I have been given.
Thanks for all the help,
Anne Marie
I was surprised that he didn't do anything apart from look at this valve... and that he suggested the pressure might still rise with this vavlve open.
However, I guess that he might not gave checked the pressue in the expansion vessel yesterday becuase that would have meant draining the boiler etc and since it couldn't have been fixed until we had the new part, I might have been left with a non-working boiler until it was fixed.
I have his phone number. Should I phone and say that I definitely want him to check the pressure in the expansion vessel in advance.... or wait until he comes to the house?
You're right that the call-out includes 30 mins labour. I pointed this out yesterday and he agreed that he would add the 20mins labout onto the next call.
He has already told me that the system will be drained through the ppv to allow him to change the ppv. I presume the pressure in the pv will be checked and air refilled if necessary (I think this is very likely) at that time. Hopefully this is accounted for within the quote I have been given.
Thanks for all the help,
Anne Marie
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Just to let you know. I've had the PPV changed but the problem still remains. The pressure is still falling. And there was an occasion when my brother turned a tap on and steam and boiling hot water came out... luckily a radiator gurgled just before this and he didn't have his hand under it at the time.
I asked the engineer to check the expansion vessel and as far as I know he did. He said it was fine and there was air in it but he didn't tell me what the pressure was. He's coming again tomorrow morning to sort it out again.
So far this has cost £100 and no better!
Your thoughts??
AM
I asked the engineer to check the expansion vessel and as far as I know he did. He said it was fine and there was air in it but he didn't tell me what the pressure was. He's coming again tomorrow morning to sort it out again.
So far this has cost £100 and no better!
Your thoughts??
AM
annemarie said:
you'll probably find that chris has identified the main fault id be surprised if it wasnt, either that or a blockage is causing the pressure to rise, the hose connection to the pressure vessel is normally easilly sludged up and ive seen many like this. Too many engineers look for a leak but if the system was leaking that much water im pretty sure you would see it unless its a nail in a pipe underneath.
the steam coming though your taps was due to little or no water in your system at the time.
to be honest any decent engineer should be able to identify a large drop in pressure like yours with a little effort but you should moniter the pressure guage when its running, if it doesnt rise more than 1/2 a bar then it may very well be a leak but it might help if you can tell the engineer as much info as possible and this would help.
Ok. First thing this morning we had to fill the system again to have a shower. Then the engineer arrived. He had another look at the expansion vessel and said there might be a problem with the valve on it as he had a few problems with it when he checked it last week. So he asked me for a bowl to drain some water (from where?) and said he changed something in the valve that only cost about 30p. He said that there must have been a problem with teh valve because the expansion vessel was now empty but wasn't before. He then asked me if I had a bicycle pump (which I did) as he had dropped the valve piping bit down the boiler. So I think he pumped it back up again and says things should be fine.
To his credit I didn't have to pay more as this was a recall.
I'm not very impressed overall but I suppose all of this could be true. I'm going to wait and see if the problem is now sorted.
Thanks to all,
Anne Marie
To his credit I didn't have to pay more as this was a recall.
I'm not very impressed overall but I suppose all of this could be true. I'm going to wait and see if the problem is now sorted.
Thanks to all,
Anne Marie
Hi,
After my last posting we continued to have problems.... but manageable ones. The pressure stayed at about 0.3, went up when we were using the boiler, but not high enough to trigger the ppv i guess. The system did not need refilling.
On saturday morning my brother noticed the pressure lower, and turned it up. A little later he noticed that the boiler wasn't coming on and that it was dripping water every where.
Now, I hadn't phoned the company back before as I didn't have much faith they would fix the problem. There had been 3 visits and the engineer who came on each of those occasions told me he was the only engineer doing domestic work. But I phoned them on Saturday morning as I didn't want to risk refilling the boiler as I didn't know where the leak was coming from.
The first person I spoke to said, No. They could only come on monday. I pointed out that they had already been out 3 times. He passed me to someone else. The next person asked me if I could 'contain the leak'. Well, that wasn't the problem. No heating was the problem. He agreed to send an emergency engineer.
This gentleman arrived... looked- said the leak was coming from the top of the boiler. Guessed that it was the AAV. Emptied the system. Changed the AAV. Checked the pressure in the expansion vessel. It was virtually empty. Filled it to the correct pressure. And then waited until the boiler had reached the correct temperature, so that he could see there was no pressure rise, before leaving.
He pointed out that this problem.. with the AAV (as Agile correctly spot diagnosed!) ....should have been picked up on the first visit. He said I probably hadn't needed a new PPV as usually, filling and emptying the system is usually enough to clear it, but maybe not. And he said that the expansion vessel hadn't had the pressure set correctly after the last visit.
Anyway, he said he would notify the company that there should be no charge for that emergency call out, or the new AAV. I have to say he was excellent. However, I could not recommend Heatforce as a company in general.
Anyway, thanks to all for all your help. Things are now working perfectly!
And well done Agile!!
AM
After my last posting we continued to have problems.... but manageable ones. The pressure stayed at about 0.3, went up when we were using the boiler, but not high enough to trigger the ppv i guess. The system did not need refilling.
On saturday morning my brother noticed the pressure lower, and turned it up. A little later he noticed that the boiler wasn't coming on and that it was dripping water every where.
Now, I hadn't phoned the company back before as I didn't have much faith they would fix the problem. There had been 3 visits and the engineer who came on each of those occasions told me he was the only engineer doing domestic work. But I phoned them on Saturday morning as I didn't want to risk refilling the boiler as I didn't know where the leak was coming from.
The first person I spoke to said, No. They could only come on monday. I pointed out that they had already been out 3 times. He passed me to someone else. The next person asked me if I could 'contain the leak'. Well, that wasn't the problem. No heating was the problem. He agreed to send an emergency engineer.
This gentleman arrived... looked- said the leak was coming from the top of the boiler. Guessed that it was the AAV. Emptied the system. Changed the AAV. Checked the pressure in the expansion vessel. It was virtually empty. Filled it to the correct pressure. And then waited until the boiler had reached the correct temperature, so that he could see there was no pressure rise, before leaving.
He pointed out that this problem.. with the AAV (as Agile correctly spot diagnosed!) ....should have been picked up on the first visit. He said I probably hadn't needed a new PPV as usually, filling and emptying the system is usually enough to clear it, but maybe not. And he said that the expansion vessel hadn't had the pressure set correctly after the last visit.
Anyway, he said he would notify the company that there should be no charge for that emergency call out, or the new AAV. I have to say he was excellent. However, I could not recommend Heatforce as a company in general.
Anyway, thanks to all for all your help. Things are now working perfectly!
And well done Agile!!
AM
Hi,
I'm sorry all. After posting a week or so ago about my great success they system started to develop a new problem. The boiler kept cutting out after about 20 minutes, and the reset light came on. It worked for a few minutes and then went off again.
We got this same company out as I thought it might be connected to the original problem. But my some miracle by the time they came out it had started working again. The engineer that I don't think that much off... he's the only one covering domestic problems... suggested that it could have been an airlock in the system and that it eventually found it's way out through the new AAV. Unfortunately I wasn't there at the time. I had already had a skirt around this and saw that the terms overheat stat and thermocouple kept coming up in relation to problems such as this.... but I didn't get to pass this info to my boyfriend.
I am now well and truly fed up with this company and am prepared to cut my losses and get someone else. I don't think that this problem is likely to be connected to the original problem.
So I have a few questions:
- could an airlock cause this problem (cutting out and needing reset)?
- is thermocouple/overheating stat more likely and should the engineer have checked something to do with this when he came out, or would he not have found anything wrong whilst the system was working?
-why would the problem be intermittent?
-should i get another company?
Any advice will be very gratefully received.
Thank you all again,
Anne Marie
I'm sorry all. After posting a week or so ago about my great success they system started to develop a new problem. The boiler kept cutting out after about 20 minutes, and the reset light came on. It worked for a few minutes and then went off again.
We got this same company out as I thought it might be connected to the original problem. But my some miracle by the time they came out it had started working again. The engineer that I don't think that much off... he's the only one covering domestic problems... suggested that it could have been an airlock in the system and that it eventually found it's way out through the new AAV. Unfortunately I wasn't there at the time. I had already had a skirt around this and saw that the terms overheat stat and thermocouple kept coming up in relation to problems such as this.... but I didn't get to pass this info to my boyfriend.
I am now well and truly fed up with this company and am prepared to cut my losses and get someone else. I don't think that this problem is likely to be connected to the original problem.
So I have a few questions:
- could an airlock cause this problem (cutting out and needing reset)?
- is thermocouple/overheating stat more likely and should the engineer have checked something to do with this when he came out, or would he not have found anything wrong whilst the system was working?
-why would the problem be intermittent?
-should i get another company?
Any advice will be very gratefully received.
Thank you all again,
Anne Marie
Hi
Sorry but lost message after much typing
After much joy at thinking problem solved the system started cutting out after about 20mins needing reset button pressed. I read up around this- heard about overheating stat- called company.
Engineer came out- it worked!- he oiled fan and told my boyfriend it was probably due to a "large airlock".
It has worked intermittently since.
A few questions:
1. Should I get an engineer from a new company?
2. Could an airlock cause this? And is it likely to be related to the previous problem... pressure falling, no air in expansion vessel, leaking AAV?
3. Could engineer have checked anything when he came the last time to see if it was due to thermocouple/overheating stat? Would that have been a sensible thing to do?
Any replies very graciously accepted. If thsi company really is not very good then I don't want to waste my time waiting in the house on them when I could get someone else to come out who would know how to fix it. Seems the young, inexperienced engineer is the only one who does domestic contracts at the moment. This seems a bit of an oversight to me... but I'm just the customer and we all know that everyone is busy at this time of the year with this weather.
If anyone has time to reply, thanks a million!
AM
Sorry but lost message after much typing
After much joy at thinking problem solved the system started cutting out after about 20mins needing reset button pressed. I read up around this- heard about overheating stat- called company.
Engineer came out- it worked!- he oiled fan and told my boyfriend it was probably due to a "large airlock".
It has worked intermittently since.
A few questions:
1. Should I get an engineer from a new company?
2. Could an airlock cause this? And is it likely to be related to the previous problem... pressure falling, no air in expansion vessel, leaking AAV?
3. Could engineer have checked anything when he came the last time to see if it was due to thermocouple/overheating stat? Would that have been a sensible thing to do?
Any replies very graciously accepted. If thsi company really is not very good then I don't want to waste my time waiting in the house on them when I could get someone else to come out who would know how to fix it. Seems the young, inexperienced engineer is the only one who does domestic contracts at the moment. This seems a bit of an oversight to me... but I'm just the customer and we all know that everyone is busy at this time of the year with this weather.
If anyone has time to reply, thanks a million!
AM
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