Hi Guys.
I realise asking boiler questions on here tends to illicit a typical response of "call a guy", but hopefully we can have a sensible discussion with regards to whats going on here. My last encounter with WB engineers was not pleasurable, and as we'll get to later, may even be part of the issue here, so i'd like to have a good grasp of whats going on.
On Tuesday morning the missus noticed the heating wasnt very warm, upstairs rads were cold, downstairs were only partly warm and gurgling. I checked the pressure guage and its pegged at 0. Okay, so we have a leak... The heatings only just been switched on a few days ago as the temperature has dropped, so clearly thats when these things come to light. Its a Combi though, and has been happily producing hot water for the last 6 months with no issues.
First step was simple, fill it back up and see what happens. So i filled the system back up bled all the rads and fired it all back up. Initially, looks all good. No obvious leaks, lets see what happens. Unfortunately i forgot to look at it on Wednesday, but no complaints from the other half.
This morning, its back to how it was on Tuesday. Cold upstairs rads, gurgling downstairs etc. So after some head scratching i decided we should try some basic tests before taking things any further. So tonight i refilled the boiler to exactly 1 bar, then closed the iso valves on the flow and return pipes on the boiler case. Before filling, i pulled the cover and checked the pressure in the expansion vessel, 2.5psi, but no water, so potentially an issue there, but as we'll see i think perhaps not the main problem. No obvious leaks inside the boiler, but some concerning marks on the cover and around the top of the primary hex enclosure which i'll get to later...
While investigating, I noticed a gurgling noise, and realised the condensate drain pipe was hot. So i pulled the flexi pipe out of the waste pipe and directed it into a plastic container. Sure enough, every few minutes about 50-75ml of nice brown water gurgled out the pipe into the container. Checked the pressure gauge and noted that it had certainly dropped. Over an hour it had probably lost at least half a bar, and discharged best part of 500ml of water into the container.
So i think that fairly reliably points to a leak in the primary heat exchanger, right?
Now for some additional oddness, two separate points infact.
Firstly, the foam that lines the front cover, was badly scorch damaged in the top left corner. On the primary hex enclosure, there was matching deposits on the housing as well as on the side of the boiler chassis. I took some pics of this and i'll upload them. This seems very concerning to me. Its clearly somehow got very hot in this area. This clearly needs proper investigation, and i'll be getting WB back out, however i wanted to know if anyone has seen this before?
Secondly, When bleeding the radiators on tuesday, i'd noticed the water in the system was slightly "nippy" on the skin. My hand had got damp with the small amount of water that came out each nipple. By the time i'd finished it felt like i'd been handling harsh chemicals, and my hand remained a little "nippy" after i'd washed them. It faded a while later. I also noticed the liquid coming out the condensate drain tonight had a similar effect. Would you expect this is normal to have that effect from radiator water?
Back in January, not long after buying the house, the pump in the boiler failed. It was intermittent, sometimes would start, sometimes wouldnt. The symptoms were that sometimes, the boiler would overheat, other times it ran perfectly. We used the WB fixed price repair scheme, and had the guy out several times before he actually fixed it. They were convinced the problem was sludge, and insisted they put a cleaning solution into the system. It didnt make sense to me, as if the boiler was sludged up, how could it possibly fire up and run perfectly half the time, and also it would happily run the shower for half an hour with no issues (on the times it did actually start). After arguing with them, essentially diagnosing the fault myself, and getting them back out, i eventually convinced them it was the pump and they changed it and the problem was solved. I have a worry though that they left the cleaning solution in the system and thats why the system fluid has the above effects.... If they had left something in there could it have damaged the primary hex and caused this leak?
Thanks!
I realise asking boiler questions on here tends to illicit a typical response of "call a guy", but hopefully we can have a sensible discussion with regards to whats going on here. My last encounter with WB engineers was not pleasurable, and as we'll get to later, may even be part of the issue here, so i'd like to have a good grasp of whats going on.
On Tuesday morning the missus noticed the heating wasnt very warm, upstairs rads were cold, downstairs were only partly warm and gurgling. I checked the pressure guage and its pegged at 0. Okay, so we have a leak... The heatings only just been switched on a few days ago as the temperature has dropped, so clearly thats when these things come to light. Its a Combi though, and has been happily producing hot water for the last 6 months with no issues.
First step was simple, fill it back up and see what happens. So i filled the system back up bled all the rads and fired it all back up. Initially, looks all good. No obvious leaks, lets see what happens. Unfortunately i forgot to look at it on Wednesday, but no complaints from the other half.
This morning, its back to how it was on Tuesday. Cold upstairs rads, gurgling downstairs etc. So after some head scratching i decided we should try some basic tests before taking things any further. So tonight i refilled the boiler to exactly 1 bar, then closed the iso valves on the flow and return pipes on the boiler case. Before filling, i pulled the cover and checked the pressure in the expansion vessel, 2.5psi, but no water, so potentially an issue there, but as we'll see i think perhaps not the main problem. No obvious leaks inside the boiler, but some concerning marks on the cover and around the top of the primary hex enclosure which i'll get to later...
While investigating, I noticed a gurgling noise, and realised the condensate drain pipe was hot. So i pulled the flexi pipe out of the waste pipe and directed it into a plastic container. Sure enough, every few minutes about 50-75ml of nice brown water gurgled out the pipe into the container. Checked the pressure gauge and noted that it had certainly dropped. Over an hour it had probably lost at least half a bar, and discharged best part of 500ml of water into the container.
So i think that fairly reliably points to a leak in the primary heat exchanger, right?
Now for some additional oddness, two separate points infact.
Firstly, the foam that lines the front cover, was badly scorch damaged in the top left corner. On the primary hex enclosure, there was matching deposits on the housing as well as on the side of the boiler chassis. I took some pics of this and i'll upload them. This seems very concerning to me. Its clearly somehow got very hot in this area. This clearly needs proper investigation, and i'll be getting WB back out, however i wanted to know if anyone has seen this before?
Secondly, When bleeding the radiators on tuesday, i'd noticed the water in the system was slightly "nippy" on the skin. My hand had got damp with the small amount of water that came out each nipple. By the time i'd finished it felt like i'd been handling harsh chemicals, and my hand remained a little "nippy" after i'd washed them. It faded a while later. I also noticed the liquid coming out the condensate drain tonight had a similar effect. Would you expect this is normal to have that effect from radiator water?
Back in January, not long after buying the house, the pump in the boiler failed. It was intermittent, sometimes would start, sometimes wouldnt. The symptoms were that sometimes, the boiler would overheat, other times it ran perfectly. We used the WB fixed price repair scheme, and had the guy out several times before he actually fixed it. They were convinced the problem was sludge, and insisted they put a cleaning solution into the system. It didnt make sense to me, as if the boiler was sludged up, how could it possibly fire up and run perfectly half the time, and also it would happily run the shower for half an hour with no issues (on the times it did actually start). After arguing with them, essentially diagnosing the fault myself, and getting them back out, i eventually convinced them it was the pump and they changed it and the problem was solved. I have a worry though that they left the cleaning solution in the system and thats why the system fluid has the above effects.... If they had left something in there could it have damaged the primary hex and caused this leak?
Thanks!
. I've seen this plenty of times and wb will know what to do
