Worcester 24i junior possibly on its last legs

[McGraw]

Hi there.

Recently our boiler started making noises that I thought was kettling...banging and crashing noticed when the dial was turned up or down.

Although it's had a new circuit board fitted a few years ago and the pressure guage is broken, it's been plodding along ok.

However it's over 9 years old now and appears to have a pretty serious problem.

The boiler went off on Friday with a flashing warning light (usually this means a drop in pressure and a fill sorts it no problem) but this time things were a bit more serious.

It fired no problem but was making horrible sucking, wheezing and bubbling sounds then turning off (not with a flashing light) after about 45 seconds. Hot water fine and the vibrating pipe seems to indicate the pump working ok to me.

After turning it back to max straight after it turned off a few times it came back to life and has lasted until now...albeit with the wheezing noise everytime it fired.

It's now off again and I'm stuck at work.

There are also other problems now that are making my next move a bit difficult to work out.

There is a quite steady drip coming from underneath the boiler at one of the pipes, obviously the pressure guage is broken and the upstairs radiators have never really got very hot.

Originally I thought that flushing with fernox would be the best solution as it would sort the kettling and possibly unclog the ancient upstairs radiators.

I'm not keen on spending a few hundred quid on a fix to all this if the boiler is a lost cause and I'm considering getting British Gas to come and replace the boiler and a few of the older radiators while they're at it...not sure if they can do a flush of the system though. Regardless they say they can only quote in a few weeks so I've got to try and get it working again for the time being.

Can anyone offer any advice as to what it might be from my description and whether I'm best off just getting it all replaced a this stage in the boiler's life.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Agile]

This is not a terribly old boiler although not one of the best in my opinion.

But I would say that its quite repairable. Probably all sludged up.

I find it quite odd that whilst you are happy paying about 1000 pounds extra to have a new boiler with British Gas that you dont want to pay a local independent perhaps 180 pounds to repair your old boiler!

Tony

 

[McGraw]

Thanks.

I'll have a chat with a local person then and see what's what.

I'm not happy to pay £1000 extra for a new boiler but that is better than paying for a short term fix for a lost cause boiler that will need replacing anyway.

 

[TheGasMan26]

Sounds likely your pump is damaged due to sludge m8.

Call BG and ask to sign up for a contract, they will do you a "first fix" for a £100 fixed fee as you are signing onto a 12mnth contract that will cost about £200 for the year.

They will rush you up the list as you are going on a contract, thus they will push other customers back to get you signed up.

If after 12mnths you no longer want the contract just cancel. Its well worth it as most first fix jobs I do for BG cost alot more than £100 in parts alone.

 

[Agile]

I have this feeling a BG visit would be claiming hundreds of pounds extra for power flushing which is not included in the 100 pound repair!

To McGraw, the 1000 extra is the increased cost of having BG do a boiler installation compared with a local installer!

Tony