Central heating not firing up

[philjohn]

Hi all resident experts, I've tried searching (through the site and google) and couldn't really find anything pertinent to my situation.

The wife and I got home tonight to find that we couldn't switch the central heating on. The lights were working on the control unit, the thermostat clicked, but the pump wasn't making its usual noise and the boiler refused to light.

Earlier in the day I heard some rather loud clanging and banging from the pipes, so there's probably a lot of air in there. Bled each of the rads, quite a lot of hissing from a couple.

Anyway, managed to find the reset button on the boiler and that fired up, but cut out again.

At this point I'm thinking the pump has died (fairly old, 10-15 years I would wager) and as such the boiler is overheating (no water flow) and doing the correct thing and cutting out.

Any suggestions for getting it fixed, local plumber/ch specialist from the yellow pages (problem with being an unknown quantity), glow-worm approved guy (replaced faulty PCB on boiler last year, but cost a fair amount) or british gas £150.00 flat rate repair job (and resist suggestions of £600 powerflush (no rads are cold on bottom))?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give,

 

[breezer]

has the pump got a supply to it?

if it has open the central screw and insert (gently) a small screwdriver, if its moving its running, if not get a new pump (local diy shed)

if its a combi (i dont think it is) what is the pressure gauge showing?

 

[kevplumb]

check that there is water in the header tank