Hi all - I'm hoping someone here could provide me with a bit of insight, advice and guidance as to what might have gone wrong with my home hot water system (central heating remains fine).
The system was last serviced in Feb 2017 but - at the moment - the system is not producing hot water by using gas... that's by the timer or if I press the Water - Extra Hour button on the programmer (you can see it on the wall to the right) - the red light does come on, but the boiler does not kick-in (my Nests do not control hot water, just CH).
The guy who looks after the system is aware of my issue, but he's said that he can't get out to me until between Christmas and New Year so I have resorted to the back-up - the 2 immersion heaters for my hot water.
They certainly work, but I've ran into a secondary problem. If I leave the immersions (or just the lower one) on for a prolonged period of time then, after a while a trickle of water will start to come out of that pipe, after much more time it'll become a flow of water that escapes outside.
Now, I know that means something is wrong - but I don't know what. I bought this house in 2014 (with the system working fine) and for the first 2 years (completely unbeknownst to me, admittedly) it was heating water by running off the 2 immersions heaters all the time, they were switched on constantly and the Hot Water at the Programmer was in the OFF position. It was only in 2016 when a Central Heating Engineer recommended I turn them both off and use the boiler to heat my hot water.
Since then I have not had the immersions switched on and I've never had water escape from that pipe. Now that the boiler's not heating the hot water (problem #1, I guess) and I'm using the immersion heaters I suddenly get water coming out of that pipe (problem #2) again.
It's actually problem #2 that I'm most curious about - why is that happening? What is at fault? Is the immersion heater not cutting-out when it should? Is there something wrong with the pipework that has degraded over time (as nothing has been changed)? Or is there a failure in that 35 litre header tank?
I'm asking here because I'd like to stop that happening if I can. However, if I'm going to be told I need a new part then I can prepare for the cost as well.
Hopefully this picture is helpful? I am at home so I can take pictures of anything here...
The system was last serviced in Feb 2017 but - at the moment - the system is not producing hot water by using gas... that's by the timer or if I press the Water - Extra Hour button on the programmer (you can see it on the wall to the right) - the red light does come on, but the boiler does not kick-in (my Nests do not control hot water, just CH).
The guy who looks after the system is aware of my issue, but he's said that he can't get out to me until between Christmas and New Year so I have resorted to the back-up - the 2 immersion heaters for my hot water.
They certainly work, but I've ran into a secondary problem. If I leave the immersions (or just the lower one) on for a prolonged period of time then, after a while a trickle of water will start to come out of that pipe, after much more time it'll become a flow of water that escapes outside.
Now, I know that means something is wrong - but I don't know what. I bought this house in 2014 (with the system working fine) and for the first 2 years (completely unbeknownst to me, admittedly) it was heating water by running off the 2 immersions heaters all the time, they were switched on constantly and the Hot Water at the Programmer was in the OFF position. It was only in 2016 when a Central Heating Engineer recommended I turn them both off and use the boiler to heat my hot water.
Since then I have not had the immersions switched on and I've never had water escape from that pipe. Now that the boiler's not heating the hot water (problem #1, I guess) and I'm using the immersion heaters I suddenly get water coming out of that pipe (problem #2) again.
It's actually problem #2 that I'm most curious about - why is that happening? What is at fault? Is the immersion heater not cutting-out when it should? Is there something wrong with the pipework that has degraded over time (as nothing has been changed)? Or is there a failure in that 35 litre header tank?
I'm asking here because I'd like to stop that happening if I can. However, if I'm going to be told I need a new part then I can prepare for the cost as well.
Hopefully this picture is helpful? I am at home so I can take pictures of anything here...