Water Jacket leaking on 6 year old Grant Boiler not impresse

Had a new Grant oil fired boiler professionally installed 6 years ago. Today it leaked and heating engineer said its a leaky water jacket and to 'phone Grant. They don't want to know as they only give a 5 year warranty. They said its probably rusting out due to contaminated water which is not their fault.

Boiler/Burner has been serviced every year.

It doesn't seem right to me that we need a new traditional flue based oil fired boiler after 6 years.

The plumber who installed it is long retired and moved away and the guy who services it will probably say he just services the burner and not the system as he is not a plumber and he recommended the plumber who is now retired.

Grant said new water jacket would probably be dearer than a new complete boiler.

Anyone got any advice or suggestions please?

Do we have to have a condensing boiler now? We don't have gas and its a wet radiator system. Not too keen on having Grant again in the circumstances.

It is worth trying to identify where the leak is coming from. If it can be attributed to a weld, you may stand a chance with Grant

The engineer said the leak was coming from underneath the boiler so can't say without taking the whole thing out I believe.

Grant said if it was a weld it should have failed in the first 18 months.

Problem is that its at mother's house who is 87 and can't really afford to be without heating in winter and with this cold patch.

Probably just have to go for a new one. Why should the water be contaminated - is there a leak somewhere?

How we can ensure that this doesn't happen again?

Thanks for your help and advice

oilhead said:

It is worth trying to identify where the leak is coming from. If it can be attributed to a weld, you may stand a chance with Grant

Click to expand...

The problem will be whilst arguing hes without heating

Its strange the amount of people that rate Grant boilers but I see quite a few where the hex is leaking and they blame it on water quality

Find it very hard to get my head around this and all them old systems that had cast iron rads and cast iron boilers that never saw any fernox and where just filled up and they never seemed to have problems although when drained the water was black as night

Are they making the cast thinner to save money .............. It could also be due to oil boilers not being serviced correctly and the flame causing hot spots on the hex .......... Its surprising since weve gone back to doing oil boilers how many boilers I go to that dont have the correct nozzle in them when we go to service them .........

I very much agree with you being puzzled.

My Dad died just before the Grant replacement and he used to be the technical director of Quiet May Oil Burner Co Ltd in London until it closed down in 1970 and he is probably turning in his grave at this.

His burners used to fire office blocks and the boilers you had to crawl in and line with fire bricks and they lasted forever.

Keen to hear thoughts on the make of a reliable strong replacement

If its a cracked weld its easily fixed.
Remove boiler and turn upside down. Identify crack and weld up, then pressure test to about 3 bar.
More if specifications allow.

The use of thinner plate and design may well be a factor,not just in Grant boilers. I do service a couple of larger Grant boilers (150,000 bthu0 which are on sealed systems, and until the system pressure is released, even though only 1 -1.5 bar, the baffles cannot be removed. Grant do not consider this a problem, but the constant stressing this must cause must surely be a cause of premature failure.
Modern oil boilers certainly are not as robust as earlier models.