Plastic to replace burst pipe

[Bubbauk]

Hey everyone

With the cold weather recently my central heating stopped working last night, after some investigation tonight it seems the pipes running from the boiler to the house have frozen and one has split, now whoever installed this boiler was a total cowboy, the pipes are ran about a foot from the floor with nothing holding them in place apart from the plastic fittings. They run about 3 meters from the boiler to the house, then 2 meters up and into the floorboards upstairs, he has used copper outside with plastic fittings inside, all 22mm which I think is standard.

Also the twin and earth power cable is just ran along the foor and not protected or secured by anything!

The lagging is very patchy and bits have been missed, I think this is where the problem is.

I only moved into the house at the start of the year but I think this boiler has been fitted for over 10 years now.

Sorry for the lengthly post but just want to confirm a few things.

I am going to replace pipe work coming from the boiler house with plastic, so the first 1-2 meters inside the boiler house are still copper, I am going to use push fit joints and fit a couple of extra elbows so I can run it along the ground properly and secure it, then lag and box the pipes in, also I am going to redo the wiring and run it inside some conduit and get it secured down somewhere, problem is where it goes into the house it has just been cemented in place (grrr!)

If anyone can provide with some help on this or advice it would be most appreciated.

Thank you
David

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Think you may be lucky something didnt explode.....

Hope the boiler itself hasnt frozen, else a new one will be on your shopping list. You'll need to run at least the first metre of pipe from the boiler in copper. Where the pipes enter the house, cement may have corroded the copper, so i'd inspect this area and replace if required at the same time. (Any gas works will require an RGI though.)

If not already fitted, look at providing a frost stat. This will override the clock and fire the boiler/pump during low temperatures to prevent boiler and pipework freezing up in future.

 

[Bubbauk]

Hey, thanks for the reply, the boiler still fires and if i bleed the pump some hot water drizzels out, I have shut it off completely now so I dont damage anything.

The plastic pipes come out of the house are fine as they are fed through larger pipes which are then cemented around.

I did read something about frost stat, thanks for reminding me, I will look into this also, hopefully I can pick one up locally.

Is there anti freeze I can put into the system to stop this happening instead, or is a frost stat the best option?

 

[ChrisR]

I don't see a question mark in your post...

but your ANSWER lies in getting someone who knows what he's talking about in, to tell you what to do. With a dog's breakfast like that there will be things wrong that you won't realise are wrong.

For now, cover it in cardboard/carpet , whatever, to stop it freezing again - assuming you're going to mend the burst bit.

 

[Bubbauk]

I don't see a question mark in your post...

but your ANSWER lies in getting someone who knows what he's talking about in, to tell you what to do. With a dog's breakfast like that there will be things wrong that you won't realise are wrong.

For now, cover it in cardboard/carpet , whatever, to stop it freezing again - assuming you're going to mend the burst bit.

Sorry, its been a long day so my post probably didnt make much sense and I have just spent the last couple of hours outside tyring to dismantle things and unfreeze stuff, not to mention having no heating really sucks, my hands are like ice.

I want to get a plumber to do it as I really dont have the time to be doing this but no one is available until after christmas and since I have 10 days off I would like some heating.

The pipes are completely frozen, probably a total of 15 meters between the flow and return which will take an age to thaw out at this temperature.

My brother knows a bit about pluming as he served his time but this was years ago and never really got the chance to apply it so has forgotten some of it and I just wanted to run this by everyone.