Hi, first post on here. Not qualified but reasonably ok with DIY.
First up, I have a "Worcester 24i R???" based on the handbook which has had a lot of the pages cut out / reduced for some reason. It's connected to LPG cylinders (rural area) and delivers mains hot water and heating. I've had it about a year and aim to have it serviced "soon". House is about ten years old and this might be the original boiler.
When I change cylinders, this inevitably means air gets into the pipework and the boiler seems to be hard to light for a bit. Is this avoidable? The arrangement is a switchover/regulator with a T piece and two hoses on each side connected to four big cans (57kg propane). I replaced the leaking auto-changeover regulator with one the same spec that is manual and I choose to turn on/off the bottles in sequence so I know when to think about ordering more gas. (I don't get the starting problem when switching off an empty and turning a full one on.)
Anyway, the main question, I replaced a cylinder from my reserve stock in the garage early yesterday and had the usual problems with the boiler not starting after the hoses had been open to atmosphere but a different set of symptoms to usual. The boiler lit up after a bit and water / rads got warm so I thought all was well and later wondered why it was so cold, the boiler had turned off the burner and the rads were cold again. Some experimenting suggested the boiler would run for a short while and then turn off. I tried setting the timer to alternate between on and off every 15 minutes and things were sort of working to some extent. This cylinder would have been supplied about a year ago but as far as I know butane doesn't "go off". The bottle would have hit about -18 centigrade over winter, if this is relevant.
The manual contains almost nothing relevant to end users but stacks of installation / commissioning stuff, a notable lack of detail is the "pressure gauge" which isn't described at all. I have a better idea from reading this site now, it was cycling from about 1.0 bar to 2.0 bar off and on heating and the only details I had was that a tap under the boiler is used to "bring it back up to 1 bar". Anyway, I tried messing with this tap in case it was part of the problem, I think it went from about 1.0 to 1.5 bar or so, pretty much instantly and I turned it off right away. It was running at the time so can't be sure about the figures.
Today, the boiler is showing 1.6 bar when cooling down with last rad still fairly hot and it might drop a little more but that's about where it sits. When the heating is on, the radiators get properly hot and the gauge is showing 2.6, maybe 2.7 bar which is higher than it was last time I bothered to look, probably in early winter last year. This is with the thermostat set to max as I have only one full sized radiator downstairs and if I don't run it hot, the house won't warm up too well. There is a little one by the front door and another by the back door, nothing in the kitchen, nothing else in the dining room and nothing in the WC or staircase / hallway. Lowering the rad temps reduces the pressure a bit.
Having had a good look inside and read bits of the manual it occured to me to use the PRV to bleed off the excess pressure - glad I didn't try this but I think it would have worked - the manual says it is just a matter of turning the knob clockwise (and no mention of "this will require replacement of the whole assembly and cripple the boiler - probably")
So I went round looking for bleed valves in the top end of the rads, they don't seem to have any but they do each have their own thermostat, which is better than a single control I suppose. The last rad in the downstairs run appears to have a pipe coming off with a square "tap" type end and a hose-type outlet - I guess this is a bleed valve? It's near enough inaccessible as the outlet is almost pressing against the laminate floor so I'm disinclined to use that except as a last resort.
While I'm posting, the other thing that I thought odd was that the pipes for the rad in the lounge appear to be those plastic click on types, these are coming up from the floor. I would have expected underground pipework to be all brazed but maybe this is just me. I have no reason to think there are any leaks because the pressure hasn't really dropped over the course of a year. It's not reaching 3 bar and venting - if that's exactly the pressure it goes at.
So the question would be, do I need to worry that the boiler pressure is high? I can't see how to bleed off pressure without flooding the hall or "testing" the PRV to destruction but if this is going to kill the boiler off maybe a flood or some sort of tinfoil containment strategy might be in order.
First up, I have a "Worcester 24i R???" based on the handbook which has had a lot of the pages cut out / reduced for some reason. It's connected to LPG cylinders (rural area) and delivers mains hot water and heating. I've had it about a year and aim to have it serviced "soon". House is about ten years old and this might be the original boiler.
When I change cylinders, this inevitably means air gets into the pipework and the boiler seems to be hard to light for a bit. Is this avoidable? The arrangement is a switchover/regulator with a T piece and two hoses on each side connected to four big cans (57kg propane). I replaced the leaking auto-changeover regulator with one the same spec that is manual and I choose to turn on/off the bottles in sequence so I know when to think about ordering more gas. (I don't get the starting problem when switching off an empty and turning a full one on.)
Anyway, the main question, I replaced a cylinder from my reserve stock in the garage early yesterday and had the usual problems with the boiler not starting after the hoses had been open to atmosphere but a different set of symptoms to usual. The boiler lit up after a bit and water / rads got warm so I thought all was well and later wondered why it was so cold, the boiler had turned off the burner and the rads were cold again. Some experimenting suggested the boiler would run for a short while and then turn off. I tried setting the timer to alternate between on and off every 15 minutes and things were sort of working to some extent. This cylinder would have been supplied about a year ago but as far as I know butane doesn't "go off". The bottle would have hit about -18 centigrade over winter, if this is relevant.
The manual contains almost nothing relevant to end users but stacks of installation / commissioning stuff, a notable lack of detail is the "pressure gauge" which isn't described at all. I have a better idea from reading this site now, it was cycling from about 1.0 bar to 2.0 bar off and on heating and the only details I had was that a tap under the boiler is used to "bring it back up to 1 bar". Anyway, I tried messing with this tap in case it was part of the problem, I think it went from about 1.0 to 1.5 bar or so, pretty much instantly and I turned it off right away. It was running at the time so can't be sure about the figures.
Today, the boiler is showing 1.6 bar when cooling down with last rad still fairly hot and it might drop a little more but that's about where it sits. When the heating is on, the radiators get properly hot and the gauge is showing 2.6, maybe 2.7 bar which is higher than it was last time I bothered to look, probably in early winter last year. This is with the thermostat set to max as I have only one full sized radiator downstairs and if I don't run it hot, the house won't warm up too well. There is a little one by the front door and another by the back door, nothing in the kitchen, nothing else in the dining room and nothing in the WC or staircase / hallway. Lowering the rad temps reduces the pressure a bit.
Having had a good look inside and read bits of the manual it occured to me to use the PRV to bleed off the excess pressure - glad I didn't try this but I think it would have worked - the manual says it is just a matter of turning the knob clockwise (and no mention of "this will require replacement of the whole assembly and cripple the boiler - probably")
So I went round looking for bleed valves in the top end of the rads, they don't seem to have any but they do each have their own thermostat, which is better than a single control I suppose. The last rad in the downstairs run appears to have a pipe coming off with a square "tap" type end and a hose-type outlet - I guess this is a bleed valve? It's near enough inaccessible as the outlet is almost pressing against the laminate floor so I'm disinclined to use that except as a last resort.
While I'm posting, the other thing that I thought odd was that the pipes for the rad in the lounge appear to be those plastic click on types, these are coming up from the floor. I would have expected underground pipework to be all brazed but maybe this is just me. I have no reason to think there are any leaks because the pressure hasn't really dropped over the course of a year. It's not reaching 3 bar and venting - if that's exactly the pressure it goes at.
So the question would be, do I need to worry that the boiler pressure is high? I can't see how to bleed off pressure without flooding the hall or "testing" the PRV to destruction but if this is going to kill the boiler off maybe a flood or some sort of tinfoil containment strategy might be in order.
