Any central heating engineers on line??????

[mckenzie]

I realise that this message is only going to relevant to few mumsnetters who either are heating engineers or who have a partner who is a heating engineer but here goes......

Back in March/April we had a problem with our boiler losing pressure. The screen shoing the number of bar would start flashing about 2.0 right down to 0.6, the red light would come on and we'd have no hot water or heating. We got the problem fixed by a local plumber recommended to us. It has been fine ever since. Or so we thought.
We put the heating on for the first time this weekend and the problem has returned.

Now that would tell me that there could be a leak in one of the radiators yes?? or no? When the fault occurs we go into the airing cupboard and turn a key that puts more water into the system. I can't find a puddle anywhere indicating a leak so far although I am about to go and do some more checking.

Any ideas please very gratefully received. The call out charge for the boiler company is £250 but the fault might not be with the boiler!!

TIA

water has come out of the pipe since the day it was fitted, 3 years ago, I checked when it was fitted and the plumbers said it was OK, its an ideal system.

Jenkel if it is coming out of the copper pipe which leads outside then this is not correct and is indicative of the boiler not working correctly

If the plastic pipe going to the drain is leaking water then that is fine.

ok, thanks, time for a plumber then.

hiya LM. It was all fine this morning but we have glorious glorious sunshine now so no need for the heating!! Thanks again for the help and I'll be back if it all goes pear shaped again. BTW, the cheque is in the post

Oh glad it stayed up.

Yes its been a nice day up here in Durham but a bit cold tonight so our heating will def be on

help lilymolly!!!! All the time the weather has been warmer and we haven't had the heating on it's beenf ine but now that we've truend the heating back on the problem has re-appeared. And i just went outside to check the pipe that your DP mentioned and sure enough, it is steadily dripping water!! So what does that mean please??

bump for lilymolly please

You already have the answer 5 messages ago:

"Jenkel if it is coming out of the copper pipe which leads outside then this is not correct and is indicative of the boiler not working correctly"

Could be swarf in the pressure relief valve, which is not too tricky to fix. Call a plumber. Not the one who fitted the boiler as he was obviously a cowboy (never, ever believe a tradesman that says 'they all do that missus').

thanks MrV. Our plumber who fitted it wasn't a cowboy though. It's worked fine for about 3 years, only went wrong late last winter. It was Jenkel who might have had the cowboy.

my apologies to your plumber

Oh and if it was fitted 3 years ago by a non-cowboy and only just started leaking it is unlikely to be swarf in the over-pressure valve, but whatever it is you need a plumber on site to track it down.

thanks Mr V. We've had three plumbers to look at it since the problem started and none has fixed it. How do I make sure I don't waste any more money that's what I'd like to know? Any ideas gratefully received.

Note to self. Do evening class in plumbing and central heating systems

my turn to apologise now!! My DH thinks that we might have always had this problem to a certain extent just not as bad as it got earlier this year and now! So my good plumber might have been a cowboy after all . So that at least means that it might just be the swarf so I'll get on the case monday and get that sorted.
Thanks for your help MrV.

i posted earlier about my boiler losing pressure had it fixed on fri.problem was at back of boiler a large bag type thing that is in 2 halves 1 has water 1 air.ours didn't have water in thats why pressure dropped.its been fixed and working fine now.

thanks mashedbanana. I've just tried to look behind our boiler but it's flush to the wall! I'm going to call the last guy monday and asked him what he did when he thought he fixed it and go from there. If he didn't do what MrV suggested before then I'll try asking him to do that now and see what happens (then if it still doesn't work i can just blame MrV!!!!!)