potterton performa 24 pressure gauge leak

hi guys,

sorry to see there's so many of us having heating trouble at winter time

hoping someone can put me in the right direction here

i've come home today and found the c/h pressure at 0.5bar. immediately i've gone round all the rads and looked at ceilings to see where it must have leaked, nowhere. came back to boiler and noticed the boiler had leaked itself. a couple of days ago i had been trying to get a sunvic tlxrfp programmer working and i had to keep on lifting the control box up and down to get the cable wired in.

now i think this has caused a break of some sort in the capillary pipe that leads to the pressure gauge near to where it goes into the pressure guage. this is the only place where i can see the dark water coming from... nowhere else at all.

i know the part is available but i'm not clear on whether the pressure guage comes with the capillary pipe or not.

does anyone know?

any help or advice is greatly appreciated

thanks for your time, hope everyone had a nice xmas and all the best for the new year.

The tube comes with the gauge.

They usually break off at the back of the gauge.

In theory if you depressurised the system you MIGHT be able to solder the tube again.

The connection into the back of the gauge is usually brazed rather than soldered but you could try soldering if you have the equipment for electronic soldering ( not for soldering plumbing pipes! ).

Tony

Look for the point that the capilliary tube joins the water block. You may be able to drain, disconnect it and temporarily fit a suitable sized tap washer onder the holding nut.

You would then have to guess hoe much to pressurise the boiler to, but at least you will have heat and hot water until the parts suppliers open.

hey cheers guys,

i got the part on saturday, installed it sunday night and ranit for an hour so and no leaks. well chuffed.

g4u - i was thinking about doing something like that when it was getting desperately cold but i've not moved into the house yet so wouldn't have been worth the effort.

agile - thanks for your advice too; just unfortunate that i don't have any soldering tools. got rid of that stuff when i finished college

thanks again