Hi everyone. First of all let me apologise for the length of this post. If I don't give you all the information you can't make an informed comment.
I had an Alpha combi boiler fitted about 2 years ago and recently I also had the outside wall of my kitchen replaced. The boiler hangs on the inner wall and the flue passes through the inner and outer walls. After the outer wall was replaced I started to get a lot of water dripping from the outside flue.
About four weeks later the fan failed and was replaced under warranty. The engineer who replaced the fan said it probably failed because of the problem with the flue and suggested I get my builder to fix it.
I got my builder to have a look and he phoned Alpha and they told him that the flue was not horizontal. The also said that the inner flue has a slight run back towards the boiler and as long as the outer flue was level everything should be ok.
My builder made an appointment with a company that are Alpha approved and asked that a gas engineer attend to re-align the flue. They said that the builder needed to be there to remove/replace any morter around the flue.
The engineer attended and after doing lots of tests on the boiler we asked if he was going to fix the flue and he asked the builder to remove the morter around the flue on the outside wall. He then placed a piece of copper pipe under the flue which bent it upwards. The builder then replaced the morter. We ran the hot water for a a minute and the water seemed to have stopped dripping.
As the engineer left I asked him for his Gas Safe card. He said he was waiting for a replacement as his had expired. I asked him for his name and id number and he gave me his name and a number. I looked the number up on the Gas Safe site and it was the number for the company not his licence number.
I phoned Gas Safe and asked if they could check his name for me. They checked his name and told me that he was Gas Safe registered. The chap on the phone then asked what sort of work he had done and I said he had done some work on my boiler. The chap on the phone then informed me that this person was not qualified to work on domestic boilers. (brilliant)
That evening I switched on the heating and after about 10 minutes water started leaking from the flue again.The amount of water coming from the flue was about 50% less than before.
I called the Alpha approved company again and asked that they send another engineer who was qualified, they replied that the first engineer was qualified for domestic boilers but was waiting for the qaulifications to be uploaded to the Gas Safe site. They also told me that he had lost his ID card but that it had been found and was being sent back.
They sent another engineer out who looked at the flue, put a spirit level on the small part of the flue coming out of the outer wall and said it was level.
I spoke to Alpha and they didn't want to know, not in the least bit interested and could offer no explanation or a solution to the problem. They said that if the engineer said the flue was level that was the end of it. They also said something about fitting a plume kit to the outer flue which should cure the problem with the dripping water. This would cost about £100 including labour.
I am now worried that the fan will blow again after a few weeks/months.
Any advise or comments would be most welcome.
I had an Alpha combi boiler fitted about 2 years ago and recently I also had the outside wall of my kitchen replaced. The boiler hangs on the inner wall and the flue passes through the inner and outer walls. After the outer wall was replaced I started to get a lot of water dripping from the outside flue.
About four weeks later the fan failed and was replaced under warranty. The engineer who replaced the fan said it probably failed because of the problem with the flue and suggested I get my builder to fix it.
I got my builder to have a look and he phoned Alpha and they told him that the flue was not horizontal. The also said that the inner flue has a slight run back towards the boiler and as long as the outer flue was level everything should be ok.
My builder made an appointment with a company that are Alpha approved and asked that a gas engineer attend to re-align the flue. They said that the builder needed to be there to remove/replace any morter around the flue.
The engineer attended and after doing lots of tests on the boiler we asked if he was going to fix the flue and he asked the builder to remove the morter around the flue on the outside wall. He then placed a piece of copper pipe under the flue which bent it upwards. The builder then replaced the morter. We ran the hot water for a a minute and the water seemed to have stopped dripping.
As the engineer left I asked him for his Gas Safe card. He said he was waiting for a replacement as his had expired. I asked him for his name and id number and he gave me his name and a number. I looked the number up on the Gas Safe site and it was the number for the company not his licence number.
I phoned Gas Safe and asked if they could check his name for me. They checked his name and told me that he was Gas Safe registered. The chap on the phone then asked what sort of work he had done and I said he had done some work on my boiler. The chap on the phone then informed me that this person was not qualified to work on domestic boilers. (brilliant)
That evening I switched on the heating and after about 10 minutes water started leaking from the flue again.The amount of water coming from the flue was about 50% less than before.
I called the Alpha approved company again and asked that they send another engineer who was qualified, they replied that the first engineer was qualified for domestic boilers but was waiting for the qaulifications to be uploaded to the Gas Safe site. They also told me that he had lost his ID card but that it had been found and was being sent back.
They sent another engineer out who looked at the flue, put a spirit level on the small part of the flue coming out of the outer wall and said it was level.
I spoke to Alpha and they didn't want to know, not in the least bit interested and could offer no explanation or a solution to the problem. They said that if the engineer said the flue was level that was the end of it. They also said something about fitting a plume kit to the outer flue which should cure the problem with the dripping water. This would cost about £100 including labour.
I am now worried that the fan will blow again after a few weeks/months.
Any advise or comments would be most welcome.
