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Discuss Boiler Woes - Can I get a second opinion? in the Plumbing Jobs | The Job-board area at PlumbersForums.net

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LostAlone

Hey guys.

I'm not a plumber, just a guy who's having some trouble with his boiler looking for some impartial advice before any money gets spent.

Here's the story -

A few days ago our boiler started acting up. We've never had a problem with hot water, but suddenly if you try to run a bath after a minute or so the water runs cold and the boiler won't heat any more water unless you turn it off and on again. You can run a sink full of water to wash up no problems, it's only if you run the tap for a couple of minutes that things start going wrong.

It's hard to describe what really happens - Just that if you leave the hot tap running, then after a couple of minutes you can't hear the boiler doing it's thing anymore. The green LED that normally shows the boiler is running goes out and then a little while later the red 'restart' button starts blinking red. If you hold it down then the boiler fires back up and soon enough you can get hot water again, but again only for a couple of minutes until it runs cold again.

We don't know if it's connected to our shower (bog standard electric wall mount shower) dying on us recently. It too started running out of hot water, but it took rather longer, only happened when my better half took really long showers. But then one morning when my GF tried to turn it on... Nothing happened. Not just no hot water, no water what so ever and not even the lights come on now, not even the 'service' one. No idea if these are connected though, just I didn't want to leave anything out.

So there's the problems we're having.

That's not exactly why I'm here though.

Thing is we called a plumber who came to have a look. He took the housing off and had a nose around and declared that we need a new boiler. I'm not saying I think he's wrong or I don't trust him, just it's a lot of money here and I need to be sure before I go any further.

What makes me a bit nervous is that he said that the inlet valve had been left open and running with the value open lead to a lot of parts being damaged (heat exchanger, water tank, something else too). Thing is that I have occasionally used the valve to top up the boiler and when it's open you can clearly hear it and the pressure gauge quickly jumps upwards. If the valve has been open it's been open for months on end, but the pressure has been consistently sitting in the green even when it's running hot and I certainly haven't heard anything extra running into the system.

So really I have a few questions that I wanted to get some impartial opinions on:

Is it possible that having the fill valve open could cause that kind of damage?

If the valve was left open, why would the pressure gauge still read as being ok the whole time?

What's causing the damage if the pressure on the system is reading as ok?


Do you think it's likely that we could have not noticed the valve being open for at least eight months (maybe longer)?

Why wouldn't we have seen any particular problems with either heating or hot water for all that time?

Can you see another answer for this set of problems?

Essentially - If I call someone else in to have a look are they going to tell me the same thing again?

Thanks for sticking with me, I know it's been a bit of a slog. Two grand for a new boiler is huge deal for us right now so it really matters to us to make sure that we aren't being taken for a ride. Let me know if there's any other information I can give you to help you figure stuff out and we'll see if we can't get a solid answer.

Cheers
 
I would strongly advice you to put your location in our "Looking for a plumber or gas engineer" section:

[DLMURL="http://www.ukplumbersforums.co.uk/im-looking-plumber-gas-engineer/"]I'm looking for a Plumber or Gas Engineer[/DLMURL]

and let one of our honest and knowledgeable members have a look. Most of what you've been told is dubious to put it kindly...

PS - electric showers don't connect to the boiler so discount that theory.
 
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what boiler have you got now

and +1 with the above where you located?
 
its posible the engineer has made his judgement based on the age and condition of the boiler especially if its a cheap boiler where parts are exspensive but i would get at least another quote for a new boiler
 
Our boiler is a Worcester Greenstar 24i Junior and it's certainly a good few years old; has been here since maybe 2008 or so. He did say that it was more a matter of the parts costing more than a new boiler and I can certainly understand that, I just need to do my due diligence here and maybe try to understand a bit better what happened to cause the problem.

Oh and we're in North Kent.
 
Our boiler is a Worcester Greenstar 24i Junior and it's certainly a good few years old; has been here since maybe 2008 or so. He did say that it was more a matter of the parts costing more than a new boiler and I can certainly understand that, I just need to do my due diligence here and maybe try to understand a bit better what happened to cause the problem.

Oh and we're in North Kent.
I would guess you have a blocked plate to plate. Not inexpensive abd potentialy not the only fault present. The juniors are imho not great boilers 7 years is enough to kill some. As my fellow forum members gave alllready suggested you should seek additional eyes on advice from a regisrered gas safe engineer, not everything you describe having been told by your plumber regarding the boiler sounds right.
Question is do you want to put money in to your boiler only for something else to go in 6 months it is possible for repairs of faults like you have described to cost in excess of ÂŁ250 in parts and labour. But only the replaced parts will have any kind of warranty or guarantie.
You could on the otherhand put that ÂŁ250 towards a new boiler and installation many brands and midels will then have upwards of 7 years warranty.
 
Definitely get a second, third or even fourth opinion then at least you'll have a variety of quotes to look through as well should the boiler actually be on its last legs
 
Worcester greenstar is not a quality boiler have ripped some out only a few years old as customers are fed up with them.
 
As above , get a few opinions and quotes from those who recommend changing it out , a simple thermostat might tide you over for another season ....
 
If it's got a few issues that will cost a lot then get worcester out on a fixed price repair.
 
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