Boiler left unsafe and leaking fumes after service?

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Hi, I'm just at my partner's (rented) house and was looking to install a Hive system but noticed what looks like an uncapped hole in the flue on her combi boiler (I deal Logic ESP1 35). I can feel air movement, including warm air when the boiler is running and taking a photo looks like it's open to the outside. I'm sure I can smell fumes when the boiler kicks in too. Am I being paranoid or is this wrong? Have added a picture or two, hopefully.

Oh, there is a CO alarm fitted to the ceiling a few feet from the boiler but I've just checked and it appears to be dead!

Thanks,
Ted

hole.png
hole2.PNG
 
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To the front right if the turret, on top of the boiler case is the cap that should be screwed on to the thread of the hole.
 
Email the picture to the service guy who should be very mortified.


That little white cap to the right of the flue needs to be screwed to the hole.

It is very naughty, but easily done.
 
That is the sample port where the service technician can sample the flue gases.

The cap has to be fitted, without it fitted flue gases, including carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide will escape into the house. Serious risk to health and possibly fatal consequences.
 
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Thanks for the replies - since posting the pictures I've seen the cap you're talking about. Can't see it normally as it's above eye height. Service was November last year which means it's been like that for best part of a year.

Gas man coming round as an emergency - hopefully the same one who did the service!
 
Heard and read quite a few times caps like this being left off. A simple mistake to make but like said could be fatal. I had a plumber who did the services on my old boiler before replaced and he had a little song thing he would sing when leaving I asked him what he was singing and he said he made it to remind himself of lots of little things to remember to do. Was quite funny at the time but makes sense if it means not forgetting something.
 
It's a Carbon Monoxide (CO) alarm not a Carbon Dioxide (CO²) alarm.

The action of twisting it onto the base plate connects the internal battery
 
Motco's Law of Universal Incompetence:

"Always assume that the professional person, service operative, tradesperson, artisan, or other individual with whom you are dealing is incompetent unless, and until, they demonstrate to the contrary"
Follow this rule and you will rarely be disappointed. It applies to all walks of life from brain surgeons to garbage sorters, and lawyers to checkout operators. Members of this forum excepted, obviously. :p
 
Hmmm.... while I take your point, that attitude can bge very transparent and could well pizz off a competent professional to your detriment .
 
The problem is if you do not know the correct way you don’t know there incompetent. That is why you pay money for some form of guarantee that person knows what they are doing.
 
Gentlemen, I am old enough to not irritate (much) unless I wish to, but often the incompetence is so gross that a blind man with a straitjacket on would be hard pressed to miss it. A brief example. I took a car to an independent tyre shop for a wheel alignment check. They had a all-bells-and-whistles computerised system but sadly not a technician to match. The cradle (for the want of a better name) that is clamped to the front wheel and that bears the laser that is seen by the rear equivalent, is supposed to locate on the rim of the wheel but the operator had sat one of its feet on a clip-on balancing weight rather than the rim itself. This, of course, gave a false datum some three millimetres out from where it should be. As politely as possible I asked if the system would allow for this superimposed misalignment and he grunted as he relocated it on the steel rim. There was a measure of spanner chucking and air-tool kicking but the job was done.

Another: my mother in law's hot water system was down and I had a quick look and concluded that the coil in the cylinder wasn't receiving sufficient volume from the DHW circuit. It was hot going in but cold coming out. As there was a BG contract in place I did no more but watched the BG chap (who turned up in a timely fashion) go through the diagnosis. He concluded that the flow pipe was blocked. I had already noticed that the ingoing pipe was hot but that the outgoing return was stone cold and mentioned this in a casual way. His view was that the heat was being conducted up one storey by the obviously static water held back by his 'blockage' and that this was why it was hot. Mine was that there was a huge airlock leaving the flow pipe with a mere trickle running along the bottom of the pipe accounting for the hot flow. He was about to leave because this 'blockage' was outside the terms of the contract but I could see him thinking as he gathered his gear. He vanished into the roof space and within a minute I heard water flowing and he came back down. It appears that on a previous visit to repair a burst pipe the isolating valve had never been reopened and over months the level in the make up tank had fallen to below the outlet. The rads worked because they still had a full circuit, but the DHW was almost dry.

I may try to be diplomatic in a proper British fashion, but I'm damned if I'm going to let a full-sized cock-up go unmentioned!
 
I had already noticed that the ingoing pipe was hot but that the outgoing return was stone cold and mentioned this in a casual way. His view was that the heat was being conducted up one storey by the obviously static water held back by his 'blockage' and that this was why it was hot. Mine was that there was a huge airlock leaving the flow pipe with a mere trickle running along the bottom of the pipe accounting for the hot flow. He was about to leave because this 'blockage' was outside the terms of the contract but I could see him thinking as he gathered his gear. He vanished into the roof space and within a minute I heard water flowing and he came back down. It appears that on a previous visit to repair a burst pipe the isolating valve had never been reopened and over months the level in the make up tank had fallen to below the outlet. The rads worked because they still had a full circuit, but the DHW was almost dry

So you're saying you spouted a load of error filled nonsense to a professional doing his job. He thought about it for a bit and fixed the problem, which had nothing to do with your musings.

And that gives you the sense of superiority over everyone you may engage for a service is some kind?

We have words to describe this in our industry.
 
I seem to have struck a nerve here. My 'error filled nonsense' as you so politely put it was on the nail. There was no blockage but there was a low water level and consequent low flow rate which offered similar symptoms to an air lock. Clearly there was some flow but so little that the energy that the water carried was extracted completely leaving the return flow stone cold. The top horizontal run of the supply to the coil was carrying a runnel of water only fractionally filling the diameter of the pipe because the water level had fallen to that point. It could not possibly have been a blockage because there would have been no flow at all and the flow and returns would have been both cold. Obviously a partial blockage would have exhibited the symptoms but that proved not to be the case. The incompetence was: failure to fully investigate the cause, and failure by the previous operative to open the stop valve after repairing the burst pipe. This character is supposedly a BG trained 'expert' but I am an amateur. How come I was able to guide the 'expert' to further investigate the cause rather than simply shrug his shoulders and go on to his next appointment without further thought? Had I maintained a respectful silence in the presence of a so-called professional, then my mother-in-law would not have had hot water that day nor any day for a week. A surgeon takes twenty years hard study to become a professional, but a BG technician has a minute amount of knowledge masquerading as expertise. Don't insult proper professionals by calling these half-baked techs professionals. There's a big difference between training and education. You can train animals...
 

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