Britony combi 80 & 100 help! PLEASE! *begs*

[purification1]

I'll try and put as much info as possible as I have no idea what is going on. I live in rented accomodation and I am having problems with the boiler. The landlady is about as useful as a chocolate teapot and it took us 3 years to get a new bathroom suite that was MUCH needed let alone sorting this.

The boiler a chaffoteaux et Maury Britony combi 80 and 100 Fanned flue combination boiler, heating and Instantaneous domestic hot water ( ha I quoted the service guide lol)
Previously it had made the most unimaginable screeching/moaning noise when the hot water has run and so far 3 "professionals" have had no clue why or what for. We were previously told to keep checking the pressure as this seems to have a mind of its own of lately and it's either low and i have to do the necessary or it's looking like it's gonna spill over to past 3.

My new dilemma is different however.

Recently we have had dripping in the Kitchen directly below the boiler, above in the bathroom, I noticed that the dripping occurs only when the heating is on. Rang landlady but again ...meh.. I may aswell have talked to the walls. I am however concerned about this, seriously and I have turned the heating off. I cannot see where the leak is coming from and had no idea boilers could leak water lol so at the moment I am in a freezing cold house with a 5 year old boy. luckily we have a plug in radiator so we have to use that a room at a time lol


Am I safe to turn the heating back on (besides the drips in the kitchen lol) ?? That is all really I want to know so I do not spend xmas day freezing by the xmas tree! Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Slugbabydotcom]

I noticed that the dripping occurs only when the heating is on.

I'll be lucky if I get all of this right but here is what I envisage.

The drip is due to the pressure vessel being cream crackered and the water getting out of the PRV which will now also probably be cream crackered. I bet theres either a leak on or NO PRV pipe fitted at all.
Because the water pressure has gone so low there is air in the boiler which is causing all the noise.

Meanwhile for your new dilemma the air has worked its way out of the boiler and vented into a radiator. The PV and possibly PRV are both still U/S and because the 'professionals' couldnt fix it or get to the bottom of it the excess pressure is now blowing out and flooding your kitchen.

I wont promise you that anything is safe unless I can see it but I do see you having a warm but wet christmas if my crystal ball is right.

 

[sm1thson]

yep theres some info in the wiki, but just to help explain how it should work:
the pressure/ expension vessel should be full of air (behind a diaphram) as hot water expands so this gives it somewhere to expand to. if there is no longer air in it (either through the air escaping (-n which case it can be topped up w/ a pump. or through the diaphram splitting -in which case it needs a new vessel) then when the boiler is on the pressure will go sky high (rather than 0.5bar higher or so), hence the PRV (pressure relif valve) this opens at 3 bar and dumps the pressure (normally outside -but maybe into your kitchen!?).

if you press the car tyre style valve on the vessel and air comes out thats a good sign, if water comes out you need a new one. to top it up the system must be depressurised and then it vessel is pumped to 10psi/0.8bar. once old prv's have opened they tend to need replacing otherwise they may constantly drip.

 

[purification1]

to my shock horror landlady has pulled finger out and someone came round today. so far so good... heating is on and no drips. Boiler seems to be purring along quite nicely...

Thank you for your help! Much appreciated!

 

[Agile]

Thats good for you!

Perhaps you should post the name of the engineer who fixed it because we seem to hear of some complete moo-moos who try to fix boilers and seem totally incapable.

Tony