Boiler tripping out after drilling through water pipe

[Stotty1]

Hi I’m hoping someone may be able to help me, I made a very silly mistake on Monday and drilled a hole in a water pipe while relaying some floorboards.

I have a gas boiler with an immersion heater, when I hit the pipe I turned off the main water and all three valves I have in the airing cupboard.
I replaced the pipe and turned all the valves back, the water was off maybe about 2 hours but because the electrics tripped I was not able to test the boiler until yesterday afternoon.

I turned on the hot water and heating yesterday afternoon and initially all was good but then after maybe half an hour the boiler tripped out, I reset it and it worked maybe 15mins before tripping out again and it keeps doing this.
All the radiators are getting hot but the hot water is not coming out warm.

I turned the hot water on again this morning and the pipes sounded awful, I could see them moving, the boiler cut out after a couple of minutes.

I’m thinking there maybe air in the pipes but I have not idea how to remove it from the hot water.

If anyone has any ideas on what might be causing the boiler to cut out and water not getting hot please let me know.
Thanks in advance

 

[CBW]

Did any water get inside the boiler?

 

[Stotty1]

Hi Chris thanks for the reply, water was running down the wall the boiler is on so it is possible water got inside somewhere

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

If only there was a plumbing section on the forum.

 

[A2018]

What do you mean by tripping out, Boiler stopping but still has power but perhaps a fault code or is the electricity cutting out ?
What was the purpose of the pipe that you drilled ?

If you have an immersion heater as well then it suggests its not a combi boiler so the hot water and heating is usually controlled by 1 or more electrically operated valves connected to the programmer and the tank and room stats that then directs the flow of hot water around the radiators and or the coil in the hot water cylinder (that in turn heats the hot water), depending on if heating and or hot water is required. I am not a heating engineer but if the boilers power is staying on but its stopping heating then i would suggest firstly checking that the valves you closed were all reopened fully.

What was the noise from the pipes like, there is air in them or banging ?

If the power is going out that then suggests moisture some where in the boiler electronics or the supply to it or its controls.

if the pipe you drilled was a mains water pipe or the hot water pipe going from the cylinder to the taps then i would think unlikey to be an issue with air in the heating pipes unless you had to perhaps move them to fix the other pipe.

if the pipe was a heating pipe then you would need to refill the heating and bleed all the radiators adding more water as necessary there may be a bleed valve in the airing cupboard or else where to allow air out of the pipes. If it was the heating pipes then don't forget to add corrosion inhibitor however if it was me i would be wanting to fix the problem before adding it so as not to waste it if the heating has to be drained down to fix the problem.

More info including the make and model of the boiler may help people point you in the right direction

 

[Stotty1]

Hi thank you for the reply, so I have a Potterton promax SL boiler, I’m pretty sure the pipe I drilled through wasn’t a mains pipe as the leak didn’t stop after cutting the mains water off. I turned off all three taps in the airing cupboard to stop the leak.

If the turn on the CH and not the HW the boiler will run fine, Iv bled all the radiators and found next to no air in any of them.
If I turn on the HW the pipes start banging like it’s trying to push air around, the noise started in the bedroom where I had the leak but now sounds like it in the boiler itself.
After the HW being on for a few minutes it stops and I have to press the reset button to get it going again.

I have played around with the motorised valve, opening it into the manual position in the hope it would let some air out but no joy.

Hope that all make sense, I will add some pictures to try and show the layout.

 

[Stotty1]

 

[foxhole]

Have you bled the air on the magna clean? Mine always collects there with leaks on the hot water circuit .

 

[martin hill]

When you closed the stop valves have they all opened up correctly again. Checking inside the boiler is gas safe only. Get the boiler looked at and a service at the sametime.