Re-pressurise oil-fired combi

[brad1980]

Hi - hope someone can help...

Returned home from work today with no central heating. The hot water was fine. The pressure gauge on the boiler (Potterton Flowsure) was at around 0.5 which I assume is too low as the marker is a little under 2. Tried to bleed / vent the rads and the first had a fair amount of air come out. After this the pressure went to zero - when turning the boiler back on it sounds awful (lots of struggling sounds). We left it to run for a few minutes in case it needed to get going again (as you can tell we have no idea what we are doing!); but didn't seem to progress and the pressure did not increase. Suffice to say we have no water or heating now.

The boiler doesn't appear to have much in the way of servicable elements. There is a "Reset Twice Only" comment on the burner and a small black valve on the black pipe leading from a brass pipe outside to the burner. Other than that I can't find anything that will allow me to re-pressurise the system.

Jumpers on and hot water bottles at the ready... would be great if someone has some pointers!

Thanks in advance,
Brad

 

[JPH/01]

You are looking for a flexible silver pipe, this will have a valve on at least one end that needs to be opened to let water into the system, fill-up to 1 bar pressure.

 

[brad1980]

There is a flexible silver pipe inside which doesn't appear to have a valve on either end. At the bottom end it has a round nut and a hexagonal one on the other end. Is this what you mean?

Appreciate the help!

 

[holty]

the flexi pipe your looking at, is it attached to the burner, if so forget that one.the pipes leading off your boiler theres e.g 22mm flow and return 15 mm hot and cold, theres usually a link between the cold 15mm pipe and heating 22m pipe,done by the flexi,in your case the flexi could be missing as by water regs these arent ment to be kept on and if so often given to the customer.but you will notice two isolation valves near each other on the pipes

 

[holty]

forgot to mention try reseting the high limit stat on the boiler which is on the underside of the control panel if the burner has locked out different issue

 

[brad1980]

Hi Holty,

Thanks for the clarification - have found the two valves and re-pressurised to about 1.8 bar (that's where the marker was previously set so have assumed thats where I needed to pressurise it to - hopefully that's correct!). We now have hot water back, but the heating still doesn't seem to fire.

All the rads are individually controlled and we have a seperate control panel / timer downstairs. The central heating switch on the boiler was set to "off" which I presume is because it is controlled by the seperate panel.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
Brad

 

[brad1980]

Sorry - should also say; tried setting it to 1 bar initially which still didn't help the heating, so also tried putting it up to 1.8 bar.

 

[oilman]

1.8 bar is far too high, unless you have a six storey building. The original 0.5 bar was adequate if you have a two storey house.

The Flowsure is probably the most hated oil combi ever.

 

[brad1980]

Unfortunately we didn't choose it. Will lower the pressure.

Can anyone think of possible reasons why we still have no joy with the c/h, but water ok?