Boilers

[Zebra]

Thank you agbagb, I'll stop panicking now. I shall of course be having a Gas Safe person install the boiler (one day...), my panic was just that I'd planned the whole layout, done all the wiring already and sealed up the ceiling. I'm not quite clear what the "one reduction down to 25mm per installation" means, do you think it means that if all the other clearances are OK you can have just 25mm clearance in one direction? I think I'd better get some Gas Safe engineer's quotes in, and ask them for sure. The other option, I've just checked on some DIY forums, is to flue it through the flat roof, so I'll calm down now.....

 

[agbagb]

Yes, it says for mine anyway, one of certain distances (including distance from corners) can be as little as 25mm.

But through a flat or pitched is also an option.

Chill time, there will be a way to do it.

 

[worms]

The other option...is to flue it through the flat roof...

Given how difficult it is too keep a good waterproof seal on a flat roof in our climate, I think I'd be wary of that option...unless it turns out to be the only option!

Admittedly my view is also influenced by the very poor job our heating installation "engineer" did with the flue on our pitched roof, where it all seems to have been held in place and waterproofed with silicone sealant!

 

[Lime]

Zebra if you know what type of boiler you are going to install go to the manufacturer's website and download the fitting instructions.
Remember there are restrictions where the flue is placed outside AND restrictions on where the boiler is placed inside the building too.
However the manufacturer's recommendations are to be followed at all times for good reasons and will also give you peace of mind if you know what you can and cannot do.

When I had a gas wall heater fitted 7 years ago my installer said it couldn't go where I wanted it to go.
Fortunately for me I had studied the fitting instructions and was able to correct his misinformed opinion and it was fitted where I wanted it.

 

[tobydog]

Well, despite having a service, and despite having a new blending valve fitted last month, our fairly new boiler is on the blink again . It's struggling to fire up for the heating and we have nothing coming out of the hot taps. The odd thing is that it really is nothing, not even a drop or suggestion that water was ever in them. System pressure is okay if a little low, and the sensor 'eye' is clean. Something has been split in the housing and it's hard to tell what it is. It's white and powdery and covers quite a few components. No obvious damage except some corrosion on the metal casing covering the water inlet pipe. I'm sure it wasn't there before the blending valve was changed. Could it be something caustic? Nothing looks to be leaking.

I'm calling our regular plumber now given the cold spell coming up. I'm just glad we kept, and plan to keep, the electric shower. Modern boilers, who actually wants them? :roll:

 

[Flyfisher]

Amazing, isn't it, that boilers can cause so much grief. They are only glorified kettles, for goodness sake, and you'd think someone, somewhere, could make something simple and reliable. :roll:

 

[LadyArowana]

Amazing, isn't it, that boilers can cause so much grief. They are only glorified kettles, for goodness sake, and you'd think someone, somewhere, could make something simple and reliable. :roll:

They used to. Both the ones I had to replace were well over 2 decades old and had served very well. Neither of them had actually killed anyone although apparently one was plotting to.

 

[Flyfisher]

Hmm. It's the "apparently" that increasingly bothers me.

 

[tobydog]

The days seem to be gone when you simply got a plumber. For some reason we now seem to have a 'plumber' who plays with pipes, and a 'heating engineer' who plays with boilers. I spoke to them both this morning and both seemed to think the other was responsible for looking at it. I have a call in with the manufacturer who arranged for the blending valve to be fitted. Googling suggests it could be an airlock, limescale blockage or a failure of the new blending valve. Will let you know how I get on. Not happy :evil: but could get :twisted: .

 

[Zebra]

Amazing, isn't it, that boilers can cause so much grief. They are only glorified kettles, for goodness sake, and you'd think someone, somewhere, could make something simple and reliable. :roll:

It does make me wonder about other options, since funds are starting to run low now. At present, I have a power shower, no hot tap in the bathroom basin, and when I want to wash the dishes I have to fill a bucket from the shower. And I manage!
Now I know that electric water heating is less efficient than gas, but if you only wash up when there are no more cups, and only hose yourself down every other Sunday :wink: it's hardly a huge amount, not like a family of five who all want a bath every day. Makes me wonder about using instantaneous under-sink electric water heaters, and saving myself a good few grand on installing a boiler at all.
That only works though if I can insulate the house well enough that the woodburner is enough, and I don't need central heating at all either!
Perhaps not wise though....

 

[Flyfisher]

I know how you feel Zebra - decisions, decisions.

I'm planning to first install a woodburner with a back boiler and a couple of radiators. The house is too big (and drafty) to contemplate 21C throughout (unless I win the lottery!) so I'm concentrating on having just one warm room + kitchen for the winter months, supplemented by open fires in other rooms as and when needed. I'm not too fussed about warm bedrooms (electric blankets are essential though!) and the boiler/stove must have gravity-operated 'heat leak' radiators installed in case of electrical failure, so I'm hoping they will be adequate to take the chill off the main bedroom and bathroom.

However, this scheme won't provide DHW during the warmer months so I'm thinking of using off-peak cheap(er!) electricity and an immersion heater during these times. I haven't had a close look at the numbers yet but although electricity costs more than gas it is 100% efficient and I would save the considerable cost of a gas boiler.

My basic plan is to live through one winter with this arrangement and see how things work out. Unfortunately I'm too late for this winter so it'll have to be next year. At least we're fortunate to have the option of a mains gas boiler if my plan turns out to be hopelessly inadequate.

 

[Zebra]

Interesting that you're going through similar dilemmas Flyfisher, and interesting that you're quite prepared to live with a cold house, which is something I'm not prepared to do (but then your house and mine are quite different..)! I think the solution for me will be to install wiring for the electric solution, which I can do easily; to install pipework for radiators before I screed the floor; and then give it another winter and see how I go. If any of the wiring or pipework never got connected up it wouldn't be any great loss, but gives me more options.
Or in other words allows me to procrastinate on decision making!

 

[Flyfisher]

Procrastination, while allowing enough contingency for future options, seems to be a tried and tested method of dealing with period properties - especially when some major changes have already made. It makes perfect sense to me to let a house readjust itself to each set of changes and to wait until things settle down again before considering the next steps in any 'grand plan'.

Throwing everything we've got all at once at a house can be a bit overwhelming (for all concerned) and if something doesn't quite work out as expected it might be quite difficult to figure out which specific change caused the problem.

Of course, this approach only works if you can live with a degree of mess/disruption/discomfort, but that seems to be a defining characteristic of many PPUKers.

 

[tobydog]

Didn't make much progress overnight. In a nutshell, if the boiler and heating are both working, and the boiler pressure is normal, what would be an obvious cause for no water whatsoever (hot or cold) coming out of any hot taps? Cold water taps are fine. It's a Firebird C26 Combi.

The boiler has a small inbuilt hot water tank for immediate use. I tapped this and it sounded completely empty. Is that normal?

The manufacturer told me to disconnect the filling loop to see whether there were any issues there. He gave me a few hints and said it should not be hot because it's the cold feed, however, the lower tap piping was too hot to touch on both sides of the tap. If this is the cold feed, is this normal? I wasn't sure so didn't disconnect it.

As you can tell, I don't do plumbing.

Thanks

 

[AMc]

Didn't make much progress overnight. In a nutshell, if the boiler and heating are both working, and the boiler pressure is normal, what would be an obvious cause for no water whatsoever (hot or cold) coming out of any hot taps? Cold water taps are fine. It's a Firebird C26 Combi.

The boiler has a small inbuilt hot water tank for immediate use. I tapped this and it sounded completely empty. Is that normal?

The manufacturer told me to disconnect the filling loop to see whether there were any issues there. He gave me a few hints and said it should not be hot because it's the cold feed, however, the lower tap piping was too hot to touch on both sides of the tap. If this is the cold feed, is this normal? I wasn't sure so didn't disconnect it.

As you can tell, I don't do plumbing.

Thanks

My neighbour with a reasonably new house had an issue that they had no water at all - neighbours all OK. It turned out to be a fault with a one way valve on the incoming supply which was designed to prevent their water softener back syphoning into the mains. As it turned out it was not only faulty but fitted in the wrong place too. The "emergency" plumber who came 24 hours later removed the valve and put in a stopcock as a "temporary" repair which might be permanent

Might be worth a look.

Before our oil system was removed I struggled to get any one to come when the boiler broke down in November. Many wouldn't deal with a boiler they hadn't serviced and one suggested late January. In the end I rang the oil supplier who were able to send "their" engineer that day who replaced the jets, dealt with the toxic CO levels and had the house warm by 5pm.

 

[worms]

I don't do much plumbing either, but if the cold feed is too hot to touch, and the tank is empty, it sounds like there is no cold feed to the tap. Has someone turned it off further out? Does the cold feed come from a header tank or straight off the mains? If its from a header, has the ball valve jammed?

 

[Flyfisher]

My neighbour with a reasonably new house had an issue that they had no water at all - neighbours all OK. It turned out to be a fault with a one way valve on the incoming supply which was designed to prevent their water softener back syphoning into the mains. As it turned out it was not only faulty but fitted in the wrong place too. The "emergency" plumber who came 24 hours later removed the valve and put in a stopcock as a "temporary" repair which might be permanent

Might be worth a look.

We have a non-return valve in the pipe for our outside tap. I turn off the outside tap stopcock over winter and the valve is indoors so is never affected by frost, yet twice in the last few years I've turned it back on in the spring and the valve has seized and needed replacing.

I don't know if there are various types of such valaves or whether some are better than others, but I'm certainly not impressed with their reliability and would certainly be looking for them if I had any supply problems.

 

[tobydog]

AMc / worms - thanks for your responses. I think you and the manufacturer are all on the same and hopefully correct track. That was their first thought and why they pointed me to that area.

The water comes in directly from the mains and that must be fine because we have water to the cold taps. We recently had an in-line lime fighter fitted on the water feed to the boiler. This was fitted very close and according to the manufacturer should be no closer that 3 metres. The plumber moved it further away but took the opportunity to fit a cut-off valve on the water feed where the lime fighter came out. We recently had a new blending valve fitted by another plumber (appointed by the manufacturer) and he may well have turned off this tap and failed to turn it back on again. Given that we use very little tap hot water (shaving only for me) I'm wondering if, over the past few weeks, I have been slowly draining the mini inbuilt hot water tank and not realising it wasn't getting replenished. This explains the hot feed pipe and the empty tank.

I'll check it tonight. I so so hope it's as simple as that.

Thanks

 

[worms]

I so so hope it's as simple as that.

Hope so!

But it does sound like there are a lot of other options on that feed line! If it is not simply turned off, could you by-pass the other components with a flexible pipe just to see if that rectifies the problem and isolates the faulty section?

 

[tobydog]

Now you're getting technical although I'm sure I know a man who can!