KESTON CELSIUS 25 CRACKED HEAT EXCHANGER

[pipshady]

Just after a bit of advice from any fellow engineers who have any experience with these boilers

long story short i have a customer with a suspected cracked heat exchanger on their celsius 25, now i have very little experience with kestons, i ve managed to avoid them up until now but i was just wondering if anyone else had come across one with a cracked H/E and wondered what the likely cause would be??

the reason i say 'suspected' cracked h/e is because i m going by what the keston tech line have told me, basically the boiler will not fire, gas and sparking present but when i removed the spark electrode i found them to be wet, i must admit i thought straight away that it was a cracked h/e as i had an ideal response 120 with same symptons before christmas!

so has any body else come across this problem? what are the heat exchangers like to change? and what is the likely cause of the h/e cracking

thanks in advance

phil

 

[Mr Smyth]

Make for them there hills....... run away......

 

[pipshady]

believe me i m hoping to!

 

[mickyg]

wondering if anyone else had come across one with a cracked H/E and wondered what the likely cause would be??
l

yes, had this problem, its caused by a manufacturer who can't make a reliable boiler.

what are the heat exchangers like to change? and what is the likely cause of the h/e cracking

Never changed one, and would always try and convince the customer the most economical option is a new boiler, because usually that is the best solution, if you replace the heat exchanger(which probably isn't cheap) you will be back soon fixing something else, and the customer will wish they'd replaced it anyway. These boilers are shockingly awful.

 

[sturmey]

These boilers are shockingly awful.

Mine's been in nearly 7 years.

Regular servicing,clean water and new pcb has kept it going.

Just waiting for a breakdown any day now...!

 

[heatingman]

or (most likely)

the installer didn't install/commission it correctly in the first place.

 

[kestonbo]

so true as no one reads the instructions

 

[heatingman]

I was starting to think that I was the only installer/engineer that liked Keston boilers.

 

[transam]

Was that not a Keston that was featured in the gas Installer I Spy section , apparently not an isolated incident either !! these boilers are total Turkeys (made I believe now in Romania) rip it out put something else in !!

Any way Kestobo seems to me you are blatantly advertising on this forum are you not ???

 

[heatingman]

silly point, but they have always been made in Romania.

 

[transam]

silly point, but they have always been made in Romania.

Well there you go live & learn I never new that , however I do not think the Thermomatic was ?? think it was Italy ?? but than again ??

 

[heatingman]

The original Keston boiler was a copy of an American boiler and one of the Stephenson brothers decided to make something similar. I might be wrong but I think the Romanian factory connection was a mate type of thing, it was empty doing nothing and the Stephensons needed foundry/factory facillities.
Please feel free to correct me if wrong.

 

[ollski]

celcius hx is a doddle just make sure you order a new burner seal as the old one will disintergrate and a new one doesn't come in the crate.....and make sure the cust. is sitting down when you tell them the cost. Probably the most awkward part of the job is replacing the plasticflue pipe in the boiler.

 

[ChrisR]

Ideal Responses corrode through, rather than crack...

Have come across several of the bigger Kestons cracked, usually due to inadequate bypass/overruns on installation.

Were it not for the "easy" flue options I don't think many Kestons would be fitted at all

 

[Boilerman2]

In my opinion the Keston C40/55 series crack because of poor design, with a rectangular stainless box with water way tubes pushing against the end plates, it seems that the naturally occuring expansion of the tubes pushes the end plates causing the stainless welds to crack I have now seen this 3 times, in every case the boiler was well maintained, commissioned and connected via a low loss header so no circulation fault.
unfortunately hot combustion gasses that leak out destroy just about everything in the boiler case especially the riddicouls computer style ribbon cable that runs the full length of the boiler interior - ribbon cables are not even heat resistant
Keston are simply a "dire" boiler