Hi all,
I'm at my wits end after a week of boiler woes.
Last Sunday we noticed a smell of gas coming from the boiler when the heating came on. We immediately called the Gas Emergency Services and someone came very quickly and detected that there was indeed a leak from the boiler. He shut the gas off and told us to contact a Gas Safe Engineer. I found someone local on the Gas Safe website and he came round within a matter of hours.
He's quite a "character". When he came round his detector "wand" wasn't working. He said he had just had it serviced and would have to send it off again. Nevertheless he looked at the boiler and found that the seal had disintegrated which is where the gas could have been seeping from.
He came back the following night, replaced the seal and offered to service the boiler. When he opened it up he took one look and said we were "lucky to still be here." Basically it looks like the boiler hasn't been serviced in years, if ever, since the house was built in the early 90s. (We have been here a couple of years.) The inside was full of build up and he also found that there was a load of plaster in the flue, presumably from when the house was built. (He was able to see that our neighbour's flue, adjacent to ours, was also full.) Anyway, he cleaned everything out, fully serviced the boiler and ran a number of tests to check everything was ok, including a 3 minute-long test to see if there were any drops, indicating a leak. There weren't and he went on his merry way. We ran the heating for a few hours before heading to bed and all seemed ok.
The next morning we woke to find the electrics in the bathroom had tripped and there was no hot water but the heating had come on as it was timed to do.
The following morning we woke to find that there was no hot water and the heating hadn't come on. On both occasions our Honeywell programmer said they were on.
The engineer's advice was to reset the programmer, which I did to no avail. If we switched the CH on manually it seemed to work, but the hot water didn't.
Finally, today I turned the CH on via the programmer, and when the boiler fired up I got a whiff of gas. I switched the heating off, waited for a while, then went through the process again. Sure enough, I once again smelt gas.
We've once again had the same engineer in. He has checked again for any drops, sprayed various parts of the boiler, but can't detect anything. But even while he was here switching the HW/CH on to test, I could smell gas, which he couldn't. He has tried saying that it's me being paranoid and even blamed some herbs I'd put in my cooking, but I know gas when I smell it. As for being paranoid, yes, I suppose I am but the fact that he kept telling me how lucky I was to still be alive when he was servicing the boiler will have that effect!
Either way, gas leak or no gas leak, the hot water and heating aren't running as they should.
Anyone have any ideas? I'm exhausted and don't feel safe enough to leave the programmer running when I'm not in the house, and I keep sniffing the boiler every few minutes!
To add to the confusion, I've also been looking into the programmer I have (Honeywell ST9400C) and they seem to come with their own world of problems.
I'm at my wits end after a week of boiler woes.
Last Sunday we noticed a smell of gas coming from the boiler when the heating came on. We immediately called the Gas Emergency Services and someone came very quickly and detected that there was indeed a leak from the boiler. He shut the gas off and told us to contact a Gas Safe Engineer. I found someone local on the Gas Safe website and he came round within a matter of hours.
He's quite a "character". When he came round his detector "wand" wasn't working. He said he had just had it serviced and would have to send it off again. Nevertheless he looked at the boiler and found that the seal had disintegrated which is where the gas could have been seeping from.
He came back the following night, replaced the seal and offered to service the boiler. When he opened it up he took one look and said we were "lucky to still be here." Basically it looks like the boiler hasn't been serviced in years, if ever, since the house was built in the early 90s. (We have been here a couple of years.) The inside was full of build up and he also found that there was a load of plaster in the flue, presumably from when the house was built. (He was able to see that our neighbour's flue, adjacent to ours, was also full.) Anyway, he cleaned everything out, fully serviced the boiler and ran a number of tests to check everything was ok, including a 3 minute-long test to see if there were any drops, indicating a leak. There weren't and he went on his merry way. We ran the heating for a few hours before heading to bed and all seemed ok.
The next morning we woke to find the electrics in the bathroom had tripped and there was no hot water but the heating had come on as it was timed to do.
The following morning we woke to find that there was no hot water and the heating hadn't come on. On both occasions our Honeywell programmer said they were on.
The engineer's advice was to reset the programmer, which I did to no avail. If we switched the CH on manually it seemed to work, but the hot water didn't.
Finally, today I turned the CH on via the programmer, and when the boiler fired up I got a whiff of gas. I switched the heating off, waited for a while, then went through the process again. Sure enough, I once again smelt gas.
We've once again had the same engineer in. He has checked again for any drops, sprayed various parts of the boiler, but can't detect anything. But even while he was here switching the HW/CH on to test, I could smell gas, which he couldn't. He has tried saying that it's me being paranoid and even blamed some herbs I'd put in my cooking, but I know gas when I smell it. As for being paranoid, yes, I suppose I am but the fact that he kept telling me how lucky I was to still be alive when he was servicing the boiler will have that effect!
Either way, gas leak or no gas leak, the hot water and heating aren't running as they should.
Anyone have any ideas? I'm exhausted and don't feel safe enough to leave the programmer running when I'm not in the house, and I keep sniffing the boiler every few minutes!
To add to the confusion, I've also been looking into the programmer I have (Honeywell ST9400C) and they seem to come with their own world of problems.
