Vokera Excell SP80 losing pressure, pilot light going out

[SamHolder]

Hi

I've got several problems with my boiler.

1. It loses pressure
2. The pilot light keeps going out
3. The hot water doesn't get very hot and 'cycles' cool and warm.

It has always lost pressure as long as we've had it, but we have not been able to find any obvious leak anywhere and we were sort of resigned to it. It only needed topping up once in a while so we could deal with it, but I noticed that since I bled the radiators (and one had a fair bit of air in it) it has been losing pressure very quickly, needing topping up every day pretty much. We had the boiler serviced (by a Vokera specialist recommended on here) around the same time we bled the rads, and since then we have had this issue with the pressure and also keep waking up to find the pilot light has gone out. Not every night but a couple or 3 times a week. Coupled with the fact that since the service the quality of the showers has gone downhill as the 'cycling' temperature seems to have dropped (it always cycled to some degree but now seems to have a lower range of cycle).

Also when the heating comes on I can hear a bubbling sound in the bedroom that sounds like its coming from one of the rads in there. A couple of time over the last couple of months we have heard a loud, low pitched banging noise coming from the boiler

I topped up the pressure to 1.5 about 20 mins ago and put the heating on. Its now at 3, next to the red line. From what I gather through reading, this is not a good sign

I'm hoping that all of these are related and that a single thing will fix them all. Fat chance I'm sure. Reading through some posts it seems that there should be a pressure release valve that goes outside that could be letting the pressure out, but as far as I can see there is no outside pipe to check for leaks. As I said nothing on the boiler seems to be leaking and none of the rads are dripping anywhere, and the amount of water that is going in when we are refilling seems a lot to evaporate, but it must be going somewhere.

anyone any idea where to start?

 

[DP]

The problems you are having from the boiler seem easy to resolve.

Pilot outage can be due to number of reasons, each cause needs to be looked at to pinpoint the defect. Pilot outage problems can sometimes result in more than one visit.

Pressure going high will be due to lack of expansion facility within the boiler. This would normally be addressed when boiler last examined/ serviced. Most likely expansion vessel needs to be pressurised (any good heating engineer should have no problem carrying out that task) or failed EV. Loss of pressure could well be due to pressure sitting at 3 bar when boiler hot. Loss can also be attributed to 'passing' PRV and/ or weeps from valves and fittings

Noise in rads during HW demand can be due to diverter problem. Again easy to resolve.

In conclusion I have to say, while this boiler like any other has 'weak design' problems, I do like working on the boiler and it responds well to a bit of TLC

Water going hot and then cold is caused by dirty/ sedimented system. This would require further work to be carried out to resolve as the HWHE could be bungged up with sediment

Samholder, I have looked at your earlier posts where WD40 useage is mentioned. A boiler that has been serviced (if carried out as per the manual) like you say, should not have all the defects you list.

You location would help. Would it not be better to get in touch with the chap who serviced/ repaired the boiler and discuss above issues with him? If I had carried out a repair on a boiler, and that repair was ineffective, I would expect the client to give me first chance to look at the fault again. It might be something I could have missed, equally it could be something else causing a failure that appears to be the same.

 

[SamHolder]

Thanks DP.

I'm in Hove, and the Vokera Specialists Sussex Gas came to do the service in Oct last year. Doesn't sound like the pressure issue is anything that I can tackle my self so think I'll be getting them back to have a look at that & see what can be done about the other stuff at the same time. I'll see what the situation is like after that.

Sam

 

[DP]

Sam, send me an email for further enlightenment on this boiler. This will help you when your repairer comes calling. Email in my profile.