boiler!!!!

[lis]

hello, anybody.....
recently our heating stopped working and we called a "corgi registered" guy round to fix it.
he said,
"it was a blocked pipe"
and took 4 and a half hours to fix it. charging us 220 squid . it was really noisy after he fixed it but working, now its stopped again should we call him again.
the hot water is still on and the boiled hasn't gone out but the radiators - most of them - are cold.
any ideas whats wrong?
thanks

 

[masona]

should we call him again.

Yes,sounds like the blockage has gone somewhere else as it not flushed out 100%.Hope he don't charge any more money

 

[DP]

Certainly, get him back

Get his CORGI number. He may not be registered- just pretending.

Make and model of boiler would certainly help.

 

[lis]

thanks for the replys.

he came today to fix it.
he recons its the valve ? 'its sticking' hence why the heating was off and the water on. he also said we should replace it at a cost of 170. i didn't want to do this so he left the motor? off.

is this price reasonable? the boiler is a POTTERTON FLAMINGO 20-30.

 

[ChrisR]

It doesn't matter a jot whether he's Corgi regd or not. That's about gas safety only. You don't have to know anything about heating systems to be corgi reg!

He should have been able to find a sticking valve first time round in that amount of time, though ch systems can be hard to fault find, when you have things like partial blockages.

Stuck valves don't give you just some rads warm though. That's more likely to be a sludge blockage. You may need a power flush for which the likes of BG will relieve you of £400 upwards though others will charge a bit less.

The sticking valve - it depends. Sometimes they need a new head or a new motor, sometimes you have to cut pipes to remove them and replace, which means draining the system. Refilling a system which has sludge in it is never easy.

Have you got one motorised valve with 3 pipes or one or two with 2 each?

 

[lis]

Have you got one motorised valve with 3 pipes or one or two with 2 each?

thats a tricky question
From the boiler there is one pipe then valve-box thing-valve down to the water tank.
then away from the tank and up from the floor there is another valve with the motor that is off at the moment, up to the tank in the roof - i think.

is this something that we should get fixed quickly?
ps. thanks for the help.

 

[ChrisR]

the valve withthe head off - if you turn the D shaped (or whatever yours is) bit sticking out of the part on the pipes, it should open/close the valve. It won't turn much if it's a Honeywell valve. I think those are anticlockwise to open, but....

Go to the hot water cylinder, find the thermostat on the side. Turn it UP. Then go to the boiler, and put its thermostat fairly low.

Set the programmer so the HW is on.
You won't have full control but you should be able to get warm rads like that, because the boiler will be trying to heat the hot water, and not making it because you turned the boiler down. But the rads will get warm because you opened the valve.

You need the HE to be on to keep the boiler on, until you get it fixed. Then you will probably fiond the rads warm up much better when you turn the HW off cos all the water goes to the rads.