Halstead eden VBX30 boiler drips

[alrubaa]

Hi,
I had a new Halstead VBX 30 installed to replace my old conventional boiler and since day one the boiler started to drip when it comes on, then 10-15 minutes later the dripping stops. Sometimes it overheats and switches off. The boiler was installed by a Corgi plumber who has been back here for more than 10 times so far, he opens up the boiler and spends half a day on it, then the next day it starts to drip again. Any ideas please?

Second problem; the boiler does not seem to heat all the radiators in the house, the plumber tried to balance the radiators 6-7 times already, I tried myself 3-4 times and I got two more plumbers who tried but always the same problem, we have to continuously switch radiators on and off depending on where we are in the house. It is a 5 bedroom house with 15 radiators and the boiler seems to be able to work 10 of them at any time well, then usually I have two stone cold and 3 warm ones. That never occurred with my old boiler. The old boiler had a 32KW output which is comparable to the Halstead.

Any ideas again?

Thank you

 

[gas4you]

Firstly I think your CORGI should have put in a service call to Halstead by now for you

Do you know if the system was flushed properly? Sounds from your description that there is some blockage/sludge left in the pipe work somewhere.

 

[alrubaa]

Thank you for the reply, the plumber keeps saying he will contact Halstead but nothing happens.

He claims to have flushed the system with some chemical X100 or something but not used a power flush, I am now worried that the boiler is not big enough to cope with the number of radiators, how can I tell if that is the case.

Thank you.

 

[gas4you]

You will need to measure each radiator l x h and see if it is a single with fins, double with 1 set of fins or double with 2 sets of fins.

If old rads then just single panel or double. You then need to look up these sizes in a rad catalogue or plumbers merchant brochure. Read off heat output for each, add together and this will be the total heat requirement for your rads.

I don't know your particular boiler but would assume that it has a heat output to rads of at least 24kW. It may be 30Kw or this may just be the output to hot water. Check the tech details panel in M I's.

X100 is the cleanser that is added after the system has been flushed with a cleanser, eg X400 or X800.

If your installer is stalling over calling Halstead in you could contact them direct and explain the situation. Your installer may not want them to come in for a reason known only to him He could in fact be genuine I cannot pass judgement from afar

 

[cozzmic]

The VBX 30 is a 30kw output condensing boiler not a combi. It sounds like a condensate related leak as it starts when the system is cold and most of your condensation will happen in the first wee while.

 

[gas4you]

Thanks for putting me straight. At least I did say I didn't really know this boiler, but I didn't realise I was this far out

I'll stick to my Vaillants

 

[ChrisR]

X100 is the cleanser that is added after the system has been flushed with a cleanser

A typo - it's the corrosion inhibitor.
ie doesn't indicate any sort of cleaning!

 

[alrubaa]

Thanks guys, this realy helps. I have worked out the sizes of all my radiators compared them to equivalent radiators and worked out the total output of all radiators to be 22.9KW. So I assume it is not the boiler size that is the problem. May be I should try and flush the system myself, how about a power flush is it worth the money?

Thanks.

 

[Agile]

You must live in a very big house and have gas bills of almost £2000 p.a.

Most three bed semis have a heat loss of about 10-11 kW. Do you live in a six bed detached house?

I think your Halstead is the premix designed for an open vented system if required.

I fitted a 24 kW boiler to heat a large detached house with six double bedrooms and it was cycling on/off at about 65% on so the typical heat loss in the winter was about 16 kW when it was about 7° outside.

Balancing rads is very easy until TRVs start closing and that can upset the balance. Its not totally possible to eradicate the problem completely but few people seem to understand how do do balancing.

Your boiler should be easily able to heat the house and water.

Tony

 

[gasanova]

Hi
Firstly the leak: under any circumstances should not drip inside the house, if it's intermittent drip as you explained it's probably not a system leak, it's condensate. Condensate is corrosive and should be terminated
in a drain or waste pipe, all joints must be sound, check this is so. The pipe should be 22mm plastic (white) easy to identify.

The heating problem in order of most probable:
1. Poor circulation.
Check pump speed is to max (new HE boilers unlike your old one need high perfomance pumps e.g. Grundfoss 15/60) poor circulation will activate the high limit stat and shut the boiler down.
2. Flow and return sensors (if the the pipework had to exit the boiler from the bottom, the flow & return pipes with the sensors have to be reversed make sure the wires have been put back on their corrosponding sensor.
3. Short circuit.
Check for a system Bi-pass and if it needs to be turned down also hot water circuit.

 

[Dkc]

We too have trouble with a drip with our boiler which was installed 18 mths ago by a Corgi installer! We too have had the installer back here at least 10 times over the last 18 mths. Last Feb (one year after installation) a rep from Halstead called to check over the boiler and came to the conclusion that the automatic air bottle was leaking and he replaced it. But still the boiler continues to leak. Halsteads rep is calling again tomorrow. The leak is a problem as approx. half a cup to a cup of water slowly trickles from the boiler each time this happens. Everything can be good for weeks then without warning it happens again all over my brand new units. I am really fed up and the warrenty runs out in a few months. I asked Halstead if they would extend the warrenty and they said all the log books that go with the boiler have to be completed on time by the right person and inspected everytime their engineers come out to see the complaint otherwise the boiler is nul and void. Including a 1 yr service by the installer. Any views or solutions to my problem.

 

[Agile]

Did the installer complete the benchmark certificate?

Did you get the boiler serviced after the first year and were the service details filled in by the engineer at the time?

Sounds most likely to be a condensate leak. Trap is at the back right with the plastic bits visible at the bottom.

Tony