Supply & Feed to boiler crossed?

[ska786110]

Hi All
Would appreciate some advice;
Open vent CH system with FE tank with hot water system (also has an immersion heater) with Ideal icos he15 boiler, Grandfos Alpha+ pump and 4 rads upstairs and 3 down stairs.
Recently my parents had the boiler resited just a foot away from its original location in the Kitchen; since then every so often there are violent nioses from the attic where the FE tank is and it seems there is a lot of air being rushed through when the heating is turned on first. Also theres constant bleeding required of two upstairs radiators (Bathroom and master bed). When I first bled the rads there was some black water but now the water seems clear but there defo loads of air building up over time. To add to this I cleaned ut the FE tank which had loads of gunk in it but the noises persistant including water trickling noises in the rads every so often usually temporarily resolved by the rads being bled.
All of this started after the boiler was resited and whats got me a little confused is the piping to the boiler; I can remember that the supply and feed pipes before the resite, crossed over each other as they entered the boiler, now they both come straight down from the ceiling and run parallel into the boiler as is. Also there was some sort of filter or valve that has been removed and never fitted back (possibly to stop sludge debris getting to the boiler).
Finally my question - could this "Plumber" have crossed the supply and feed to the boiler? if so what would the symptoms be? I have been told that the boiler would simply switch off but thats not happening. Or do I just need to get my system flushed.
Oh and the so called plumber doesn't want to know...
Many Thanks in advance.
Khuram

 

[twgas]

Continual need to bleed, dirty f&e tank, black water, All these add up to a need for a system clean of some description and quite possibly some alteration of some pipework.
Does the left or right connection get hot first when boiler comes on, from cold?

 

[Agile]

Many boilers of this style work surprisingly well with the pipes reversed. The expected problem is the temperature control would not be so good and the boiler temperature control would need to be set very low as it measures the return instead of the flow.

Has it been turned up from where you used to use it in the old position?

As stated above you need to check to see.

Was the installer gas registered? If he is you could make a complaint to Gas Safe.

Tony

 

[ska786110]

Continual need to bleed, dirty f&e tank, black water, All these add up to a need for a system clean of some description and quite possibly some alteration of some pipework.
Does the left or right connection get hot first when boiler comes on, from cold?

hi thanks for the quick response; I've just checked and it's the left pipe that gets warm first from cold. The same pipe has drain valve on it. Is this the return if so is connected to the correct fitting on the boiler? Tbh I'm hoping the supply & return are fitted correctly as I don't fancy taking up the floor boards in bathroom above!

 

[ska786110]

Many boilers of this style work surprisingly well with the pipes reversed. The expected problem is the temperature control would not be so good and the boiler temperature control would need to be set very low as it measures the return instead of the flow.

Has it been turned up from where you used to use it in the old position?

As stated above you need to check to see.

Was the installer gas registered? If he is you could make a complaint to Gas Safe.

Tony

hi tony
no idea about the plumber; personaly I don't think he has many qualifications as he neglected to tell us that float valve in the FE tank was dripping, not a massive problem as you'd expect the excess water to drain off via the overflow. Except the overflow was disconnected so we had nice helping of H2O all the way down into the new White kitchen!
I actualy turned the boiler down when I became aware of this, should I reduce the pump speed as well?
Thanks

 

[heatingman]

obviously a job originally done under warmfront scheme, when was it first installed?

 

[transam]

Perhaps this problem/ fault is the fault of a gas engineer , not a plumber ??????

 

[ska786110]

Well I don't know what he calls him self the bottom line is the fault with CH system started after the boiler was moved by him.
Also I do think the original work was carried out on the warm front scheme but the problems started when my parents had the kitchen done.

 

[heatingman]

the boiler will crash & bang and make an awful racket if piped the wrong way round. By running the boiler on a very low setting will keep things cooler and reduce noise/banging issues. The flow is the right hand side pipe (looking at boiler), from cold this pipe should get hot quickly, if left one gets hot its the wrong way round. It would prob be easier to swop above boiler rather than lifting floors. You need to sort out asap as its not doing the hex any good as its cooking it.

 

[Nige F]

Perhaps this problem/ fault is the fault of a gas engineer , not a plumber ??????

What are you inferring

 

[ska786110]

The boiler is set on the forth notch out of the six. Tbh it does make a more louder bang when it first fires up then sometimes you can hear a whining noise similar to that of the sound of a gale through a small gap in a window... If you get what I mean.
So it looks like I'll have to call in an "ENGINEER" then & Pronto. If I want the sytem flushed does that mean an expensive power flushing or can the existing sludge be removed from the boiler +ch system.

 

[heatingman]

the system water needs to be tested before a decision can be made regards p/flush or chemical clean.

 

[Agile]

Since the praublem has been caused but this "plumber" then he needs to be contacted and asked to correct it. About 2-3 hours work I would expect as the systemn has to bedrained and then repiped.

What do you know about him? Name, address or just a first name and a pay as you go mobile number?

If he really is registered for gas work you can complain to G-S. If he is not registered then you can report him to G-S for doing illegal gas work.

Tony