Hi
I moved into my property2 years ago and it has the vaillant turbomax 242 boiler. I am unsure how old it is, but suspect its around ten years as I know there was building work in the house at that time.
Over time, my boiler has been losing pressure. It started off dropping from 1.5bar to around 0.8 bar in a week. I have kept filling the tank from the cold water inlet to set the pressure back at 1.5ish.
As time has gone on, the pressure has started to drop quicker and quicker. This winter it has started to lose presure in a day - where it can drop to below 1 bar when the CH is on and the boiler starts to make a few gurggling noises. When I turn it off to cool down, the pressure has dropped to 0. My wife accendially over filled the system to just over 2 bar and this seemed to stop the problem for a while. Interesting, it dropped pressure slightly when it was hot and then raised back up to 2 bar when cold. The radiators also have inconsistent heat. I have bled the radiators, but that made little difference.
After reading the various forums, I thought that I might have a leak from a radiator valve. I have been around the house (10 rads in total) hot and cold to see if i could see any evidence of a leak (wet carpet etc) but have found nothing. I did notice that there was a small puddle of water on the floor below the tank on the tiled floor about a month ago, I dont know how long it took to create as I had not checked it in a while (although we have a waste pipe their which was originally for the washing machine so I assumed it was just that). I have been checking more regularly and there does occaasionally appear to be the occasional drop of water below the cold inlet pipe, but when the house gets hot it dries up and you see no evidence of it again. The other day I did notice that the pipe from the inlet valve/screw had condensation/water on the outside all the way up into the boiler. Is this normal? or is their a leak somewhere on this line?
The amount of steam coming out of the system is sometimes so thick that it turns on the sensor lights in the garden. I dont believe that it always did this.
My second problem is that the shower in the main bathroom has lost its hot water. It used to get very hot, now I can barely get it warm The tap in the sink is not as bad, but it too has lost water heat. The shower in my loft room is absolutely fine and perfect in terms of heat and pressure, but not sure what has happened to my main shower. It started fadding running hot then cold then hot again and so on. I took the shower head off and all looked fine, although, there was a couple of pieces of broken plastic in their, but could not see from where (pipes in the wall etc). As it was only part of it, I can only assume it is from somewhere else and has been pushed along the pipes.
I did get the operational / service manual from Vaillant, but my plumbing skills are limited. Could this be a host of problems rather than one failure?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
I moved into my property2 years ago and it has the vaillant turbomax 242 boiler. I am unsure how old it is, but suspect its around ten years as I know there was building work in the house at that time.
Over time, my boiler has been losing pressure. It started off dropping from 1.5bar to around 0.8 bar in a week. I have kept filling the tank from the cold water inlet to set the pressure back at 1.5ish.
As time has gone on, the pressure has started to drop quicker and quicker. This winter it has started to lose presure in a day - where it can drop to below 1 bar when the CH is on and the boiler starts to make a few gurggling noises. When I turn it off to cool down, the pressure has dropped to 0. My wife accendially over filled the system to just over 2 bar and this seemed to stop the problem for a while. Interesting, it dropped pressure slightly when it was hot and then raised back up to 2 bar when cold. The radiators also have inconsistent heat. I have bled the radiators, but that made little difference.
After reading the various forums, I thought that I might have a leak from a radiator valve. I have been around the house (10 rads in total) hot and cold to see if i could see any evidence of a leak (wet carpet etc) but have found nothing. I did notice that there was a small puddle of water on the floor below the tank on the tiled floor about a month ago, I dont know how long it took to create as I had not checked it in a while (although we have a waste pipe their which was originally for the washing machine so I assumed it was just that). I have been checking more regularly and there does occaasionally appear to be the occasional drop of water below the cold inlet pipe, but when the house gets hot it dries up and you see no evidence of it again. The other day I did notice that the pipe from the inlet valve/screw had condensation/water on the outside all the way up into the boiler. Is this normal? or is their a leak somewhere on this line?
The amount of steam coming out of the system is sometimes so thick that it turns on the sensor lights in the garden. I dont believe that it always did this.
My second problem is that the shower in the main bathroom has lost its hot water. It used to get very hot, now I can barely get it warm The tap in the sink is not as bad, but it too has lost water heat. The shower in my loft room is absolutely fine and perfect in terms of heat and pressure, but not sure what has happened to my main shower. It started fadding running hot then cold then hot again and so on. I took the shower head off and all looked fine, although, there was a couple of pieces of broken plastic in their, but could not see from where (pipes in the wall etc). As it was only part of it, I can only assume it is from somewhere else and has been pushed along the pipes.
I did get the operational / service manual from Vaillant, but my plumbing skills are limited. Could this be a host of problems rather than one failure?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
