Banging noise for central heating boiler and wont switch on.
My daughter phoned this morning her new condensing boiler would not switch on. The house was bitterly cold with no other form of heating and three young children and a new baby to look after.
She has a maintenance contract with the central heating firm.
After a phone call and waiting for a long time she was passed over to technical support.
They asked for the error code and the reading on the water pressure gauge. They duly asked her to find a screwdriver and to start turning some screws one just kept turning round and round the other would not move.
Technical support could not help and they would send someone out but would not be able to call for 3 days or more.
I went round to see if I could start the boiler and check the screws that had been loosened.
After checking the error code a possibility was a frozen pipe to the drain.
I first checked what screws had been loosened.
It turned out they were the valves for adjusting the water pressure in the system. Fortunately one screw was seized and no addition pressure made.
The reading on the water pressure was 1.1 more than adequate to work the boiler.
The next obvious answer a frozen water pipe. Where would you think a pipe would freeze of course outside we had temperatures down -15 degrees.
I borrowed a ladder and a kettle of boiling water and poured hot water down
The plastic pipe to the grid after a few minutes we heard a crackling sound of ice falling down the pipe and water started trickling into the grid.
After switching the boiler back on all was ok and the house was warm in no time.
I cannot understand when these people install central heating pipes on the outside of the house.
The 20mm copper gas pipe runs outside the building up from floor level up
to bedroom level without any protection not even a yellow plastic coating.
A further 8 inch 15mm copper pipe u bends is on the outside of the house.
The frozen plastic down pipe is not insulated it runs down for 2.5m
With a 90 bend to a horizontal incline to the grid. CRAZY!!
We cannot do gas work without qualifications.
The old corgy safety procedures are crazy with stupid earth bonding regs. Some gas fitter earthling plastic pipes.
But even the professionals have no idea we do D.I.Y ers could do a better job.
Have you had experiences like this
?
