Hi everyone,
We've had a bit of a chain of disasters here, hope you can bear with me it's a bit of a long story but I'll try to provide as much info as possible in case someone can help.
Basically, the heating worked mostly Ok until we had it flushed/refilled, then we started getting hot water in the header tank (lots), and yesterday the boiler stopped working.
We have a fairly standard open vented heating/hot water system - 3 bed semi, Halstead 'Best 50' boiler in kitchen, 900x450mm 117 ltr cylinder in airing cupboard upstairs, two tanks in loft. Moved in 2.5 yrs ago, all seemed fine the first winter except the timer controls went funny and got replaced, no problem. Second winter, all seemed to shut down occasionally, mostly when both heating and water switched on at same time from cold on cold day. Usually found powering off and on again (sometimes a few times) restarted it fine and problem would go away for weeks at a time. Also had to bleed 1 rad in bathroom quite often. Got some people in to check it out, had various suggestions for shutdown problem (wobbly connection to timer controls, vent pipe in wrong place), but no two the same and noone seemed very sure. So, eventually went with the most reputable firm who reckoned we just needed to flush the heating and reorder the pipes a bit.
They did this two weeks ago (took us a while to get round to it and save up spare cash) - they flushed out the heating system, pumped through some cleaner, refilled with inhibitor etc. The guy said there was a lot of gunk coming out - certainly seemed pretty filthy to me. He also reordered pipes - before, it came up from the boiler, turned flat along floor of airing cupboard - first branch went up to header tank, second up to pump/splitter/heating&cylinder, then last up to vent to header tank. The guy moved this around so it went vent - expansion tank main feed - pump/heating etc, which, judging by various diagrams I've checked out, seems to be the right order. Flushed heaters much quieter, seemed a bit warmer, so far so good.
A few days later, we noticed water dripping down the side of the house from the overflows - we'd had trouble with the ballcock in the feed tank for the hot water for a while, had meant to fix it and when the guy was waiting for the heating flush I got him to fit a new ballcock for me - assumed this wasn't quite adjusted right. Eventually found time to get up in the loft to tweak it, but the tank seemed fine. So, I looked over at the other tank, the small one, the heating header tank - very very full (ballcock completely submerged) and clouds of steam coming up - rafters/roof felt soaking wet.
So, I called the firm who'd made the changes assuming something was wrong with the pipe order - they came round that morning (at least, sent some young lads), had a look and reckoned the problem was a split coil in the cylinder - complete coincidence, nothing to do with previous work, would send a quote for a replacement (still no bill for first job yet either..)
Having read up on this, seems fairly credible - heard suggestions that heavy gunking can cause corrosion, also that flushing could remove gunk that was plugging holes, so quite a common thing after a flushing. Would have been nice if they'd warned me this was likely, but hey. Waited for a quote, watching outside for the stream of water that happened about half an hour after heating came on, scooped out bucketful of water from the header tank every morning/night - not so hot now, still warm but less steam and rafters finally starting to dry up.
Got prepared to cough up for a new cylinder/fitting, although not really sure how it got hot water into the header tank - surely if there's hot water passing from the hot water system into the coil (which is what the lads told me) it would have to pass backwards through the 3-way valve and the pump before it reaches the vent pipe? Or, go down to the boiler and back up again? Anyway, assumed it was something complicated to do with pressure, gravity etc, and was happy to pay up.
Then yesterday, came home to find heating off. Tried the power off/on again thing, no luck. Had a look at the boiler (Halstead best 50), had the 'Ignition lockout' light lit up. Followed instructions, turned everything on and thermostats to max and pressed the button. After a couple of presses, the light went off, then it fired up. Lasted about a minute. Has been mostly off ever since, various tries at restarting have achieved a few spells of half an hour so so of running (enough to get heaters hot) but nothing lasting - when it's been on a while there's an L-shaped orange glow amongst the blue in the flame window, but not really looked at it closely before so that might be quite normal. Manual says probem is likely down to circuit board failure, or something like heat/flow measurers dying - so, need to get boiler serviced and parts replaced.
Basically, I want to know if there's an explanation for this. Do the various events follow on from each other somehow, or is it really just a chain of coincidences? Seems just a little too much bad luck in a 2-week period. It's freezing here, I've got a stinking cold and family coming for xmas next weekend. I'd like to get it fixed up by then if possible, and would like if possible not to have to pay these guys a huge sum - already reckoning about £600 for the flushing/pipe work, I'd guess at least £400 for the cylinder replacement and god knows how much more to fix the boiler. Should the people who started all this bear some responsibility and get things back to the way they were before I paid them to mess with it, or is it really unforeseeable and needed work?
Kinda wishing I'd gone with the suggestion of one of the first guys we had in, replacing the whole lot with a combi, which would probably have worked out about the same price...
We've had a bit of a chain of disasters here, hope you can bear with me it's a bit of a long story but I'll try to provide as much info as possible in case someone can help.
Basically, the heating worked mostly Ok until we had it flushed/refilled, then we started getting hot water in the header tank (lots), and yesterday the boiler stopped working.
We have a fairly standard open vented heating/hot water system - 3 bed semi, Halstead 'Best 50' boiler in kitchen, 900x450mm 117 ltr cylinder in airing cupboard upstairs, two tanks in loft. Moved in 2.5 yrs ago, all seemed fine the first winter except the timer controls went funny and got replaced, no problem. Second winter, all seemed to shut down occasionally, mostly when both heating and water switched on at same time from cold on cold day. Usually found powering off and on again (sometimes a few times) restarted it fine and problem would go away for weeks at a time. Also had to bleed 1 rad in bathroom quite often. Got some people in to check it out, had various suggestions for shutdown problem (wobbly connection to timer controls, vent pipe in wrong place), but no two the same and noone seemed very sure. So, eventually went with the most reputable firm who reckoned we just needed to flush the heating and reorder the pipes a bit.
They did this two weeks ago (took us a while to get round to it and save up spare cash) - they flushed out the heating system, pumped through some cleaner, refilled with inhibitor etc. The guy said there was a lot of gunk coming out - certainly seemed pretty filthy to me. He also reordered pipes - before, it came up from the boiler, turned flat along floor of airing cupboard - first branch went up to header tank, second up to pump/splitter/heating&cylinder, then last up to vent to header tank. The guy moved this around so it went vent - expansion tank main feed - pump/heating etc, which, judging by various diagrams I've checked out, seems to be the right order. Flushed heaters much quieter, seemed a bit warmer, so far so good.
A few days later, we noticed water dripping down the side of the house from the overflows - we'd had trouble with the ballcock in the feed tank for the hot water for a while, had meant to fix it and when the guy was waiting for the heating flush I got him to fit a new ballcock for me - assumed this wasn't quite adjusted right. Eventually found time to get up in the loft to tweak it, but the tank seemed fine. So, I looked over at the other tank, the small one, the heating header tank - very very full (ballcock completely submerged) and clouds of steam coming up - rafters/roof felt soaking wet.
So, I called the firm who'd made the changes assuming something was wrong with the pipe order - they came round that morning (at least, sent some young lads), had a look and reckoned the problem was a split coil in the cylinder - complete coincidence, nothing to do with previous work, would send a quote for a replacement (still no bill for first job yet either..)
Having read up on this, seems fairly credible - heard suggestions that heavy gunking can cause corrosion, also that flushing could remove gunk that was plugging holes, so quite a common thing after a flushing. Would have been nice if they'd warned me this was likely, but hey. Waited for a quote, watching outside for the stream of water that happened about half an hour after heating came on, scooped out bucketful of water from the header tank every morning/night - not so hot now, still warm but less steam and rafters finally starting to dry up.
Got prepared to cough up for a new cylinder/fitting, although not really sure how it got hot water into the header tank - surely if there's hot water passing from the hot water system into the coil (which is what the lads told me) it would have to pass backwards through the 3-way valve and the pump before it reaches the vent pipe? Or, go down to the boiler and back up again? Anyway, assumed it was something complicated to do with pressure, gravity etc, and was happy to pay up.
Then yesterday, came home to find heating off. Tried the power off/on again thing, no luck. Had a look at the boiler (Halstead best 50), had the 'Ignition lockout' light lit up. Followed instructions, turned everything on and thermostats to max and pressed the button. After a couple of presses, the light went off, then it fired up. Lasted about a minute. Has been mostly off ever since, various tries at restarting have achieved a few spells of half an hour so so of running (enough to get heaters hot) but nothing lasting - when it's been on a while there's an L-shaped orange glow amongst the blue in the flame window, but not really looked at it closely before so that might be quite normal. Manual says probem is likely down to circuit board failure, or something like heat/flow measurers dying - so, need to get boiler serviced and parts replaced.
Basically, I want to know if there's an explanation for this. Do the various events follow on from each other somehow, or is it really just a chain of coincidences? Seems just a little too much bad luck in a 2-week period. It's freezing here, I've got a stinking cold and family coming for xmas next weekend. I'd like to get it fixed up by then if possible, and would like if possible not to have to pay these guys a huge sum - already reckoning about £600 for the flushing/pipe work, I'd guess at least £400 for the cylinder replacement and god knows how much more to fix the boiler. Should the people who started all this bear some responsibility and get things back to the way they were before I paid them to mess with it, or is it really unforeseeable and needed work?
Kinda wishing I'd gone with the suggestion of one of the first guys we had in, replacing the whole lot with a combi, which would probably have worked out about the same price...
