Hot Water Getting Cooler over last two weeks - Worcester R25 R30 HE

[SFK]

All,
I have a Worcester Greenstar R25 R30 HE Combi Boiler.
It has always worked fine, serviced, but over the last few weeks the Hot Water from the Taps is getting cooler. It is still warm, but not hot enough for showers or even shaving. I am not wanting to replace it fro a new one yet, as in next year plan to have builders remove the wall it is on and get plumber to put new one in then.

There is no obvious fault. Flow rate is unchanged at about 8 l per minute (always been this slow as supply to house is poor), Temperature Gauge is saying that water being supplied is at 60 oC, Diverter seems to be diverting water through Heat Exchanger when hot water demanded, and Heat Exchanger seems to be getting up to the 60 oC displayed on the Temperature Gauge. But as said, the water is coming out is cool rather than the hot that it normally was.

So, any recommendation on what has gone wrong?

Thank you, SFK

 

[TCCHeating]

Possibly a mixer is passing between the hot and cold. Could be a tap or more likely a shower. Isolate the cold Inlet to the boiler and open a hot tap. If you get water flowing. Then something is passing. If not. Call an engineer. As it will be a boiler problem or gas supply problem

 

[SFK]

Dear TCC Heating,
Great suggestion. Just tried that. And yes there is back-flow in my Shower Mixer. And as soon as I had isolated the Mixer shower I started burning my hands in the Hot water. :>
So now off to service the Shower mixer.
With many thanks for your perfect solution, SFK

 

[TCCHeating]

Happy to help. My preference is Heineken. I'll pm you my address to send them to if you want pal

 

[SFK]

TTC,
I might just do that as I was ready to strip the boiler's divertor valve. - although I am now trying to find the paper work for the mixer shower before I strip that.
Thank goodness that I put full flow isolation taps on the whole bathroom so I can isolate the whole room and and leave the rest of the house with water.
So yes - send it through, SFK

 

[SFK]

Dear TTC,
Sorry to ask another question - as said the Mixer Bar is leaking water from cold into hot side. It is a Triton shower.
I am happy to take it apart, but to save me for doing both side from your experience do you think it will be a failure on the Valve/Tap side or on the Thermostat side?
SFK

 

[Agile]

In my experience Triton make the worst products on the market!

To make it worse their customer service is appalling as well!

The problem is likely to be a leaking seal inside the mixing part of the shower.

Try to mend it by all means but I would be very happy to hear that you had decided to replace it with a better one. Bristan and Grohe seem far better.

Tony

 

[SFK]

Dear Agile,
Ah yes - buy cheap - buy twice.
Unfortunately I liked and still like the look and the dimensions of what I got.
But okay I will check out seals and o-rings first, before I decide if to get a thermostat, before I then decide to upgrade.
With thanks, SFK

 

[St0rmer66]

If it's a standard size mixer bar then you can replace it with almost any other brand. Standard distance is 150mm centre to centre on the pipes. I replaced my old Triton with a Mira and enjoyed a nice flow rate increase (although you will be limited by the sounds of it). You can pick up some seriously cheap bar mixers from eBay, £30-40. Almost worth buying new ones over and over compared to the price of other well known brands.

 

[Agile]

I try to avoid work on showers because of the very poor quality of many which are fitted.

Are many of the bar types of different makes interchangeable on the union flange fittings cemented in to the walls?

 

[SFK]

All,
A quick update.
In the end teh problem for me was caused not by my Shower Thermostatic Mixer, but by my Bath Thermostatic Mixer.

So I know that others do not like the reliability of "Triton showers", but for me it was the expensive Bath mixer (I am now looking for its brand) rather than my relatively cheap Triton shower. As soon as I isolated the bath from the house, all the taps had fully hot water. So in my case I have to take back the "buy cheap - buy twice" and I have to applogise to Triton for bringing their name down.

Also, FYI after all the comments about the poor operation of the Triton, I stripped my Triton Thermostatic Mixer anyway just to give it the once over. I found that the face plates, where the o-rings of the Thermostatic Cartridge meet the body of the Mixer, had a build up of salt deposits that was likely to wear and damage the o-rings. So polished the salts off the face plates to make a clean/flat surface, cleaned the o-ring channels, and replaced the Cartridge. Simple 15min job. Now all the taps are working I will do the bath on the weekend.

Thank you again to all for your help, SFK

 

[St0rmer66]

My triton didn't fail, I just replaced it with one with a diverter so it had both an overhead rainhead and a flexible handset. But the flow rate was a definite improvement over the triton which was less than 2 years old and didn't have a single bit of scale (soft water area). I've kept it as a backup.