Recent content by zebu

I believe the damp is coming from the area of the floor just between the concrete and the wall, and possibly from the wall itself. The wall has had holes drilled in it, presumably for a chemical damp proof treatment twenty or so years ago. I intendeto cover the bit of wall that would be behind...

The basement of rooms of this 1850 terraced house has concrete floors. The carpet appears perfectly dry and sound. The skirting boards are rotting, typically for up to 5cm above the ground though in one corner the root extend up to 25 cm and there are bubbles and slots on the plaster higher up...

Many thanks to those of you who contributed. As you implied, what the boiler needed was a good clean, performed by a competent and scrupulous person. That has now been done. There is still a slight tendency for soot to form, and there is carbon monoxide (at most 10ppm). I plan to increase the...

Where's "here"? She's in Hertfordshire.

Many thanks. However, that still leaves one little problem. How do I find an engineer with the integrity and courage to test and refute a claim by another engineer that a system is unsafe? My mother got the current engineers by asking her neighbours...

I wasn't there when he serviced it, so I can't answer the questions well. My mother says he spent between an hour and an hour and a half on the job. He removed the cover plates, cleaned and warmed something up before testing the flue. It's not in a cupboard. He's not from BG. My...

It has two flues; one goes up the chimney for output and one snakes through the garage for intake from the outside. I expect that means it's balanced. The model number is CF60 (bought 11/07/19985).

He serviced it first and tested it afterwards. It wheezes and kettles quite a lot, by the way.

I'm fairly sure. She had someone to come into to look at it when I suggested doing so, having noticed that soot was falling out of the front. He said that it repeatedly failed tests on flue flow and that flames were coming out of the front... I don't think she'll leave the house willingly for...

My mother is 96. She lives frugally by herself in the (four-bedroom, eight-radiator) house where she has lived for more than forty years. Her boiler (Potterton Kingfisher, less than thirty years old) has just been turned off as unsafe, so replacement is needed. The system is old in parts...

Thanks everyone I've had several engineers look at the system with a view to diagnosis and, if necessary, replacement. Those that appeared to be most systematic and well-informed, and who were not just peddling the product that they knew about, favoured keeping the system open vent (or at...

Thanks, EliteHeat. Does the Worcester have an aluminium alloy heat exhanger? Is this likely to cause problems?

I've been recommended an open vent system because of its flexibility(with an immersion heater for HW, for example), higher flow rates and absence of pressurising. When starting from scratch the answer would be different, but I already have the plumbing and space for the replacement boiler and...

Thanks, Rico. I've heard that some of the open vent boilers with SEDBUK rating A don't behave well: they are best suited to pressurised systems. I'd like to know which ones behave well.

Which are the most reliable open vent boilers with SEDBUK rating A? I've been advised against getting a combination boiler, as there is space (and an F&E tank) for an open vent boiler. However I've heard that some open vent boilers in practice make assumptions that hold in a pressurised system...