ICOS HE15 Boiler, Condensate Trap Fault? / maybe my fault :(

[zoheb]

Hi all, i've been doing some research on the ICOS HE15 and have been led to this site, hopefully all the experts here will have answers for me!

We live in a new build house in Birmingham, built last summer (2007), we moved into the house 1st December 2007. It is fitted with an ICOS HE15

There was no problems with the boiler until May this year when i drilled though a plastic central heating pipe in the hallway (stupid i know!). We had to drain the system (half of which drained over me and the hallway!) And a friend came around and cut away the bad section of pipe and reconnected the two pipes with a Pushfit straight coupler.

Since then the boiler has been making very loud vibrating banging noises, it's almost as if there is a small person in the boiler with a hammer, it really gurgles and bangs, mainly after igniting/firing.

We called the housing people and they sent an Ideal engineer who replaced the PCB board after the boiler refused to switch on for 3 days. I told him about the gurgling/vibrating noises but he was not interested, he clearly wanted to fit the PCB board and be on his way. That was about a month ago.

The boiler now works but the vibrating noises are persistent and maybe getting louder, i say maybe as because it's something i'm worried about i may be making the noises progressively louder in my head!

From doing some initial research it seems the fault may be a blocked Condensate Trap.

Is that all it could be? From what i have described above does anybody have an idea as to what else it could be? Is it safe to keep the boiler on and running? Currently it's doing one and a half hours in the morning and two hours in the evening central heating? It starts banging and clanging within 30 minutes of being on.

I am planning on calling the housing people asap to get them to send an Ideal engineer round, i'm goign to tell them its the Condensate Trap. I just need some reassurances that it is ok to run the boiler and i wanted to know if it could be anything else.

Thanks for reading, sorry about the length, i've tried to be as descriptive and clear as possible and i appreciate that it's the sort of problem an engineer would need to see/test to fully diagnose, but any help/diagnosis is much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[zoheb]

I forgot to mention there are no error codes, when running there is a lowercase c and when off there is an 0.

Thanks

 

[Gasman28]

There was no problems with the boiler until May this year when i drilled though a plastic central heating pipe in the hallway (stupid i know!). We had to drain the system (half of which drained over me and the hallway!) And a friend came around and cut away the bad section of pipe and reconnected the two pipes with a Pushfit straight coupler.

Is this a white 3/4" plastic pipe? Why did you have to drain the system?
The 'gurgling' noise is normally associated with a blocked/partially blocked condensate sump/trap/pipework.

 

[gas4you]

A blocked condensate trap, which will lead to a blocked sump, will nearly always make the boiler go to L:F fault code.

Certainly sounds like a circulation problem, air lock or pump maybe.

 

[zoheb]

Is this a white 3/4" plastic pipe? Why did you have to drain the system?

Hi Gasman, thanks for the speedy reply, the coupler is from B&Q and on the packaging it says: Plumb Easy, Straight connector 10mm Pushfit Straight Coupler. It's This one

The system had drained out by the time my friend managed to come round, and to be honest i was panicking as my hallyway was filling up, so on his advice i was holding a hosepipe to the hole in the pipe and feeding the water outside.

Is it safe to keep the boiler running with a blocked Condensate Trap/Sump/Pipework?

Is there any way i can determine whether it's a blocked Condensate Trap/Sump/Pipework?

Thanks

 

[zoheb]

A blocked condensate trap, which will lead to a blocked sump, will nearly always make the boiler go to L:F fault code.

Certainly sounds like a circulation problem, air lock or pump maybe.

Thanks for the reply Gas4you, i'm just trying to gather as much info as possible to explain to the Ideal engineer, i think i may need it if the last one was anything to go by.

 

[Gasman28]

If it is a blocked condense trap/sump/pipe, then you will get an LF display.
Where does the condense pipe terminate? Outside? In your kitchen sink waste?
If this is blocked, you will get noises and intermittent faults.
The PCB is not at fault and you had a d**kbrain engineer round to look at the fault.

 

[zoheb]

There is no error code yet, just lots of clanging, i'm not sure where the pipe goes, it's just disappears into the wall?

I rang the housing people and they are sending a engineer round Monday morning, what would be the best way to describe the problem with him, is there a technical term? I'm going to tell him i spoke to a plumber friend (you lot) and he advised me that it was a blocked Condesate Trap?

 

[gas4you]

I'm still reserving judgement on the blocked condensate trap. No fault code and never known a blocked trap as yet to cause 'clanging' noises

 

[zoheb]

Any ideas as to what it could be then?

 

[gas4you]

A blocked condensate trap, which will lead to a blocked sump, will nearly always make the boiler go to L:F fault code.

Certainly sounds like a circulation problem, air lock or pump maybe.

 

[diverdee]

sounds like air n circulation issues. but the icos does seem to run very hot and bang on some poor systems try knocking boiler stat back 10%

 

[superdupergasman]

Have you got a sealed system, therefore you should have a pressure gauge telling you if there is any water in the system. after a drain down I would expect the system pressure to fall, and if you have blead any rads then that would cause it to go down!

you should refil to 1.5 bar

 

[zoheb]

Hi all, after a few more visits from the repair man he got to the route of the problem, it was the pump in the airing cupboard, he fitted a new one with more power and the problem has gone! Thanks for all your suggestions