Water coming out of condensing boiler flue???

[spawnboy]

I have a recently installed (2 months ago) Ariston Aco condensing boiler installed in my kitchen. I have just noticed that there are drips of water forming on the bottom lip of the flue and when the hot water tap is turned on and the boiler kicks in a fairly heavy stream of drips lasting about 3 seconds comes out and then it continues to drip slowly again once every few seconds. Also the hotter I set the water temp. the more water comes out! No water is coming out of the condensate drainage pipe.

I have called the installer and he is a bit perplexed but will be coming around Monday morning to have a look but I was wondering if anyone here has some advice in the meantime. I can't seem to find anything on this in the forums here or by searching on google. Any sugestions or advice will be much appreciated.

 

[Baxi-Remeha]

flue should run back towards the boiler so as the condensate runs back and out of the trap insine the boiler....

 

[spawnboy]

So the installer messed up then by not putting the flue in correctly...typical! - just painted the outside of the house

 

[Agile]

You cannot make any judgement unless you have checked the angle of the flue.

It should either be horizontal or pointing slightly upwards away from the boiler at about 3 degrees depending on what the instructions say.

Many of the flues have a built in slope because the inner part is sloping inside the outer part. Unfortunately some manufacturers have not noticed that. Even with the same flue some say slope and some say horizontal.

I have seen one with a 2 mm ridge trapping water at the end and to solve that problem I filed away the ridge.

Tony

 

[spawnboy]

I checked the manual and it says 90 degrees and the flue looks horizontal (can't check it as my level seems to have gone walkabouts). I'll leave it for the installer then. Cheers

 

[Agile]

But is the inner tube already at a slope in relation to the outer part?

I dont think the installation instructions will say "90 degrees".

Tony

 

[Paul Barker]

I just had a look at the MI's on the net they make no refernce to the sloap and they make no reference to whether the exhaust slopes internally.

In short they are useless instructions.

They refer to flue instructions but I believe these will be for accessories not related to the angle of a horisontal flue, and in any case I can't find them from their website.

If they want me to ever supply and fit their boilers they'd have to do better than this.

As regards the porblem, it is most likely that the flue should point down towards the boiler.

 

[Agile]

Its quite common to put the flue installation instructions in with the flue and not to repeat them in the boiler instructions.

This is partly to ensure the installer has the instructions relevant to the particular flue being installed.

You can look into the terminal and see if there is an internal slope.

As its a condensing boiler the outer part of the flue should either be horizontal or sloping at about 3 degrees back towards the boiler.

Tony

 

[spawnboy]

Had a look at the manual again - a 1m flue came with the boiler (I assume they used this rather than a differant one). It shows a diagram stating the flue should be horizontal and it does show that there is an internal fall inside the flue - doesn't state how much though. It goes on to state that flue can be extended and that if extensions are used there is to be a slope back of 5mm per metre (no extensions were used on the installation)

I have also found another little problem - I have a drip of water underneath the boiler. It is collecting around a piece of rubber where the electric cable runs into the boiler . I am starting to get a bit worried now. I have turned the boiler off - cold showers for the next few days then . Are these two problems related?

 

[Agile]

That information about the flue is what I expected but the question now arises what is the angle of the flue pipe?

The water leaking from the base of the boiler is something that should be checked asap.

Isolate the supply going to the boiler presumably at the fuse spur close to it.

I would suggest that you try to get the installer to come today or tomorrow!

Tony

 

[spawnboy]

I have turned off the electric supply from the fused spur.

The installer is away this weekend so Monday is the earliest he can make it round, or so he told me anyway!