I Love Plumbing, Me.

So had a word with my plumber buddy ...and we will drop the water next weekend ..
Plan of attack is thusly ..
inject Fernox descaler F3 on friday ...leave circulating in the system for 24 hours ..
Refill loop and inject stand Fernox maintainance F1 on Sunday ....
I've also asked him to replace the Venturi manifold ...got one for a tenner deliverd ..
This sits in the flue exhaust ..and detects both outgoing exhaust and incoming clean air ..thus balancing pressure ...
I have noticed that I can trigger the boiler to start simply by opening the sealed outer of the combustion chamber ..a couple of mm ...
So I'm now convinced that this is somehow relevant ...though finding a description of what the VENTURI is ..and how it works is eluding me.
I do know it directly operates the air pressure switch ...and is related to ... and works with the flue fan.
rgds
VS
 
Revert to coal .......
 
Lazarus said:
Revert to coal .......
Click to expand...
T'would cost more than a new boiler to open up the chimneys again ...in fact one would need completely rebuilding..
...naaa ..
think I'll pass..
lol
 
Oh well.

Valve failed in Heating only position last night.

Got up to visit the Men's Room at 0 crack sparrow fart and the house was really warm, and the control unit and Stat were ineffective. Thought at first the frost stat must have kicked in, but no.

Have frigged it by winding up the HW stat above Boiler Water temp so there's continuous demand and I can now control the CH again.

Downside is the pump runs continuously and the bypass rad in the bathroom is permahot.

Fortunately I refurbished last April's failed unit, so I'll pop that in when I get a chance.
 
Lazarus said:
Oh well.

Valve failed in Heating only position last night.

Got up to visit the Men's Room at 0 crack sparrow fart and the house was really warm, and the control unit and Stat were ineffective. Thought at first the frost stat must have kicked in, but no.

Have frigged it by winding up the HW stat above Boiler Water temp so there's continuous demand and I can now control the CH again.

Downside is the pump runs continuously and the bypass rad in the bathroom is permahot.

Fortunately I refurbished last April's failed unit, so I'll pop that in when I get a chance.
Click to expand...

Hopefully you'll be able to swap the part over with the refurbished one.

Otherwise you might have to purchase a new one:eek:

Is it just the hot water, you have lost?
 
Not seen this thread before, and so a small tip regarding compression joints: if you have leakage problems that aren't solved by tightening up the nuts then replace the normal PTFE plumbing tape by "gas tape" which is intended for use on joints in gas piping (the clue is in the name :D!) - that's also PTFE, but it's quite a bit thicker and fills up any voids under the nuts far better than the normal stuff. Used the stuff quite a few times myself - including recently on the valves of a new bathroom rad that I had to fit -, and gave that tip some years ago to a mate of mine who had been struggling to stop leaks in his system, and it apparently worked "first time".

Also, if you have not already got one, fit a magnetic filter (with lock-off valves on either side so that you can isolate and clean it without draining the system) into the c/h circuit in the return circuit to the boiler to trap iron oxide particles before they get recirculated - had one fitted when we had a new combi fitted to our very old system about 8 yrs ago, and I was amazed at how much stuff it caught within a few days, but that got less & less as time went by. It should always be cleaned at the same time as the annual boiler service!
 
What's an "annual" boiler service?
 
@JE.

Yup. Got a Mag.Filter. They're grrrrreat! Doubles as a Fernox dosing point too, so that's handy. I clean it twice a year.

@PaulR

I'm with you ..... oil boilers are best left until they breakdown. I have spare nozzles, flame detector cell etc. I do, however, empty and clean the Condensate Trap now and again.
 
Terryl said:
It's something that never gets done till it's too late.
Click to expand...
There may some variability in when our cars get serviced (but they do - usually when the weather is warm & dry!), but not the annual boiler service because I/we like being warm in the Winter and so it always gets done around the middle-to-the end of Sept although, surprisingly, I did have some trouble a few years ago in finding a decent independent local company to service our Bosch combi after the guys that installed in closed their local setup.
Edited: another tip - if you have a Bosch boiler and your local c/h engineer quotes a very high price & long turnaround time, then go direct to Bosch (Bosch Worcester in the UK) because they sent a guy out 2 days after I called and he fixed everything: new hot water heat exchanger, pressure pipe & gauge, and the main control PCB (he had all the parts in the van!), pluS a full system test, for a fixed price (confirmed before the visit) of about £310 (Inc VAT) + £60 for another 12 months callout cover! Cost me a lot more than that just to have the expansion vessel replaced by the local guys a year ago and took 2-3 weeks to get done - should be set up for years now as all the vulnerable parts appear to have been fixed!

OTOH, I did service the old conventional Gloworm boiler for around 30 yrs because that was quite easy & very quick (unless I needed spare parts which became very difficult to find after about 15 yrs or so) - it helped that the installer left the installation manual behind even though that was clearly marked as NOT to be left with the customer! :D
 
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Chris1979 said:
Hopefully you'll be able to swap the part over with the refurbished one.

Otherwise you might have to purchase a new one:eek:

Is it just the hot water, you have lost?
Click to expand...

Got a refurbished spare.

Will try to repair the failed one, but even if it's beyond cheap and simple redemption, a new one is only 30sovs..

I have both CH and HW by virtue of placing a permanent demand on HW, so the valve can travel between the mid point and the "slack" position - It only sticks if it is called to drive to the CH only position, so I have made sure it isn't asked so to do.

Will fix it on Monday, so SWMBO is exposed to too much profanity.

If the failed one is due to the synchron motor, they are only 8 sovs.
 
@Lazarus
I used to replace those sychron motors in the motorised valve of the old system - but found them a pain to get parts for and then to reassemble.

Also I stuck a much bigger pump in the system after a couple of standard-sized ones failed after about 5yrs each - no failures after that!
 
Done a couple of those Motors over the years. Not a difficult job, except for making sure the wires don't get trapped anywhere they shouldn't!
 
All done.

Less than an hour to part-drain (Only need to lose a couple of gallons as the valve is located higher than the rads), whip out the old valve, fit new, rewire, fill and test.

The motor on the faulty one does work, but the mechanism is stiff.

Will fettle it, apply silicone spray and keep that as a spare. Zero cost!
 
Well, all sorted: Removed the head from the valve, took the motor of the head and still the mechanism graunched.

Wa*ked the mechanism umpteen times using the "Manual" lever and liberally sprayed with silicone lube.

Now works smoothly, with a capital smoo!
 
Lazarus said:
Well, all sorted: Removed the head from the valve, took the motor of the head and still the mechanism graunched.

Wa*ked the mechanism umpteen times using the "Manual" lever and liberally sprayed with silicone lube.

Now works smoothly, with a capital smoo!
Click to expand...
He said Lube and Wakked ..

Saved yerself a good few quid there G
:-bighappy
 
You're not wrong. I say, you're not wrong ;):D
 
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