Intermittent CO issue

[mikehiow]

Hi, I am neither a plumber or a gas engineer, but hope to call on your collective experiences in the hope someone may have experienced this issue or have any ideas as to the cause.

Sunday night my Carbon Monoxide alarm went off, I quickly shut the boiler and gas off and opened all the windows. The firm that installed the boiler came out Tuesday morning and could not find any fault nor any sign of a carbon monoxide leak.

To rule out the alarm being faulty, I purchased a new alarm, this time a different model with a digital display and functionality to display peak levels.

The morning after "installing" the new monitor, I noticed the peak was at 35ppm but dismissed it as being a quick snap or a mis-read as the alarm did not go off.

Moving forward to today, I popped out for a few hours, the house was empty and upon my return the alarm is going off. My neighbour informs me that it was going off for a good hour.

Again, I turn the boiler, shut of the gas supply at the meter and call the gas engineer again. The CO meter is reading 96ppm, with a peak of 100 (I assume it tops out at 100, as it seems too round to be an actual reading), I reset it just in case (After opening all of the windows) and place it back inside, it's now reading 46ppm and falling as air circulates through the house.

A short time later, the engineer turns up, checks the ratio in the flue and tells me its a rather healthy 6.5. He stays for a further hour to check around various other places with the boiler running and comes up empty, with a maximum reading of 2ppm above the boiler and 3ppm below the worksurface under the boiler, oddly. Further investigation revealed nothing.

The only other source of gas or in fact any fossil fuel burning in the house is the gas hobs, which had not been used any time near either "event". Next door have since armed themselves with a couple of CO alarms, too. No one smokes inside the house - I am a smoker, but was out both times.

The boiler is a Worcester Greenstar 15 Ri, which I believe is a condensing unit (it has a water outlet) and was fitted roughly two years ago.

FWIW, all windows were shut at the time.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I do not intend on attempting a repair myself obviously, but if I could replicate the issue then I'd be one step closer to getting it fixed.

Thanks in advance,
Mike.

 

[GQuigley67]

is it an open flued boiler ? it could be a ventilation problem, is the vent blocked ?

 

[mikehiow]

I believe it's what you call a balanced flue? ie. the outlet runs inside the inlet.

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

Worcester Greenstar 15 Ri, y7ou probably did not see this bit gq,lol i do that alot,so we know its a condensing room sealed boiler,6.5% co2 on the fga reding is well in but do you have a horizontal or vertical flue mike?

 

[mfgs]

A 15Ri is roomsealed. If he was getting any rise in CO level around the boiler whilst operational, compared to a reading from the room when the appliance is off then the gas supply should be capped to the boiler until the problem has been rectified. 100ppm of CO is deadly.


DO NOT USE THE BOILER UNTIL CHECKED OUT PROPERLY.

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

yes its both never seen one fitted like that thats not to mi,s surely

 

[mfgs]

Ive never seen a plume kit used like that before, looking at the picture it looks as if there will be some joints on that plume kit, perhaps they have become dislodged?

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

Ive never seen a plume kit used like that before, looking at the picture it looks as if there will be some joints on that plume kit, perhaps they have become dislodged?

me neither it looks highly suspicious and contravenes the regs as the flues enclosed in the roof space and the air intakes to close to the fascia

 

[GQuigley67]

must be something to do with the flue, can you get access to it ?

lol didnt realise that part, its a long OP

 

[mfgs]

me neither it looks highly suspicious and contravenes the regs as the flues enclosed in the roof space and the air intakes to close to the fascia

Yeah, very odd. I dont know why anyone would think that it was acceptable to do that.

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

to the op useing it strait away call in another gas safe registered engineer the flue set up you have there looks far from right and is probably slowly killing you and your family

 

[mikehiow]

Boiler has been shut off, I will get another gas engineer round to check it out. It is very worrying, as we have a 6 month old daughter, although I had already sent her and the OH to her Mum's just to be safe.

Thank you for your help, I'll be sure to update here with any progress.

 

[capitanpugwash]

Mike

Is the flue area where it disappears into the soffit accessible from inside to inspect the flue or is it inaccessible as it looks? Was the vertical section of the flue there before- has it been joined on to with the new boiler, or was it all new at the same time?

 

[mikehiow]

It is not accessible from inside, I suspect the soffit will have to come out to have a look.

The boiler was installed before I moved in, however looking at the installation I'd say it was all new. In fact, if I remember rightly, I've got a feeling I was told there was a very old cylinder burner here before the boiler was installed.

I suspect they went up and hit a beam directly above where it comes out of the wall, hence what I assume is the S bend inside the soffit and the upper outlet not lining up with the pipe coming out of the wall.

 

[capitanpugwash]

Would there be any problem with putting a new straight flue through the wall and effectively capping off the existing flue which looks like it has too many bends and connections in it? If it is leaking through any of these then you may be best off simplifying it so it is inspectable for the length of the flue. I would also want first to open up the soffit to try and find the leak. If you find a suspect connection then that could be your answer. Well done for recognising the danger, turning off the boiler and sending away your family. This situation could have ended up in tragedy...

 

[GQuigley67]

it is very unusual for a room sealed boiler to be setting off the CO alarm, if the boiler was fine then the obvious place to check next was the flue. I can't believe the engineer never checked this and let you continue to use the boiler!

 

[mikehiow]

It's funny you say that, as that is pretty much what he said - he's never seen one develop a CO leak!

Thinking about it, I cannot believe he didn't check the flue, and more-so why I did not ask him to.

I have someone coming round tomorrow morning to look at it, so fingers crossed.

 

[GQuigley67]

its not your job to tell him to check the flue, he should of done that himself as that would be the first thing I'd check if it was a room sealed appliance and it was leaking CO.

 

[tamz]

Certainly is an ingenious use of a plume kit but it is wrong and will have to change. You have 3 possibly 4 inaccessible joints. Problem with a straight vertical is the window on the dormer will be too close.
Get another engineer out. 1 possible solution is to extend the full flue past the soffit. Worcester allow this.

In the meantime keep it switched off

 

[GQuigley67]

probably became loose due to high winds moving the vertical flue about

 

[mikehiow]

Well, another gas man came round today. Figured out that the other one did not check the emissions correctly as the boiler apparently should have been put into service mode and on max, and the figure should have been something closer to 10.something here.

No CO was found in the soffit, however it is believed that a mixture of weather and it building up in the soffit was probably the cause. This chap phoned Worcester technical to double check on the regulations, and sure enough it doesn't comply and they told him to issue a warning ticket.

This information went to the company who fitted the boiler, and I think it was their MD that came out within an hour, came and went and a new flue that protrudes past the end of the soffit was in by 3PM.

Let's just hope that is the end of my CO issues.

Thanks once again to everyone, arming myself with the right information has been invaluable in getting this resolved.

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

excellent result

 

[GQuigley67]

glad to hear that your problem was sorted

 

[capitanpugwash]

Great result- thanks for keeping us posted!

 

[buckley plumb]

just one thing looking at the photos the old flue seemed to be sloping from boiler not to it so a build up of condensate could have been in the plume elbow causing the flue to restrict the flue gases.

ant

 

[REDSAW]

want to ask if the installer used to be in the 'navy' a sub-mariner comes to mind with a set up like that!!

it is actually wrong at the sounding of a co alarm, the gsr engineer should of i.d all gas appliances to the property untill a fault is found and rectified, if not, dissed.

well done for being on the ball, how many people out there dont even use a co detector and people have a go at bg for trying to sell them?.

 

[Blackcatgas]

But look at all the effort thats gone into that bodge, the bespoke lead slate, lovingly dressed to the tiles, theyve spent more time bodging it "to a high standard" than lowering the boiler or fitting a vertical flue.
Id have been very interested to have pulled off that plastic panel that theyve stuck to the sofit to inspect the joints on that plume management pipe.
Thank god you had a CO alarm.
I used to own a 182 btw, lovely car.

 

[tamz]

But look at all the effort thats gone into that bodge, the bespoke lead slate, lovingly dressed to the tiles, theyve spent more time bodging it "to a high standard" than lowering the boiler or fitting a vertical flue.

Whoever fitted it was clearly skilled. Just not with flues

 

[Blackcatgas]

Whoever fitted it was clearly skilled. Just not with flues

Everyone can/has cut corners before, me included (not on flues or anything critical like that btw!!!) its the knowing that youve cut the corner... but when people are doing stuff to a bad standard and genuinly thinking that they are doing a good job is where its worrying, the bloke that did that flue probably stood back and admired his handy work as "a good job".

 

[tamz]

He should have taken a photo as it was a neat piece of work. Only thing missing is a bit patination oil! Shame it was all wrong