Ideal Mini S24 - Wheezing noise then rubble, stop!

[MarkGolf]

Hi All,

Typically, I am due to move out of the property I am in this week and the boiler decides to pack up.

It's an Ideal Mini S24, not amazing I know but it's got this far. It started making noises in the night, when the heating would activate, it would almost sound like something was running around in the loft but it was just the boiler making some sort of rotational/knocking for around 5-10 seconds. then it would just continue working. (i think)

On inspection. water pressure at just under 2 bar COLD. temp around 30/40.
If I activate the hot water, it tries to come on but does not ignite, I flick dip switch and lights indicate 'faulty primary circuit'.

If I turn power off and on again, activate heating, works but does eventually make the knocking sound but just carries on working and eventually no sound at all. House heats up fine all round.

If I activate the hot water, i get the noise and then it locks up.

Faulty primary circuit.

The noise is pretty gruesome but when it occurs, i touch the pump and the noise does not feel like it's coming from that. It sounds like it is coming from the upper part of the boiler.

Youtube hosted videos

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[terryplumb]

Is property rented or have you sold it ? If rented it's not your problem ,if selling ,engage an engineer to repair.its not something you can do yourself in either scenario

 

[MarkGolf]

I'm selling so want to have it working for the new guys moving in.

Will be contacting someone, just interested to hear thoughts on what it could be.

Bloody thing!

Working fine right now but it will fail next time around.

 

[MarkGolf]

There is an auto pressure relief valve behind the pump, earlier on, I released some pressure as it was at 3 bar. Since then, it is still dripping, this is a few hours now. So I'm guessing that has some limescale build up preventing it from closing 100%

 

[terryplumb]

PRV ,sometimes will not close fully after lifting, you could try opening it a few times to see if it will re seat fully. It's not an ideal thing to use to let water out of the system ,and why is your system pressure 3 bar it should lift automatically at 3 bar.

 

[MarkGolf]

Thanks Terry

Not sure why gauge was fixed to 3 when cold so released to 2. Been a long time since I had to look at the system, I had heard it dripping in the past but just assumed it was doing it's job.

 

[terryplumb]

System pressure ,when cold ,should be a tad above 1 bar. If it rises to around 3 when heating is on ,the EV isn't performing. Not that any of this has to do with the noise.

 

[MarkGolf]

Good to know.

Will reduce when cold, will have someone come and see what the noise is about, kettling is something I just discovered which sounds exactly like what is going on.