Metal glowing red in my Potterton boiler!

[james1138]

Hi all,

A few weeks back, we had a problem with our Potterton Profile Combi Gas Boiler. When we switched the heating or hot water on it just seemed to be dead, and made a strange buzzing sound.

So, we called somebody out, who promptly replaced the fan, and everything worked ok. Great.

Its been working fine since. But since yesterday, when we switch the heating on, it is slow to fire-up and then makes a strange pulsating sound (like a chugging noise). When the hot-water is switched on this seems to be ok.

Suspecting something wrong, I took a look into the hole that shows the blue gas burners. We can see two pieces of metal slowly starting to glow red, and after 3 or 4 mins they're red hot!

Does anyone know if this is normal? The chugging noise today doesn't seem as bad, and the heating and hot-water seem to function, aside from the slightly delayed startup, slight chugging noise ... and red hot glowing metal filaments!

Any info much appreciated.

Cheers,

James

 

[ChrisR]

Chugging - god knows what you're describing! Is the boiler low on water?

The red metal bits are the spark electrode and flame detector - quite normal for them to be red.