Noisy Potterton FSB30 HE

[Northernson]

Hi,

First post here. I am hoping someone out there can help me with my problem.

I have a floor mounted Potterton FSB30 HE condensing heat only boiler.

Its not even a year old so I know its still under guarantee, but it's making a low whining noise which starts a few minutes after the boiler fires. This noise gets louder and then gradually fades away completely after about a minute.

I am thinking bearing noise and wondered at first if it could be the condensate pump, but as I only hear the noise at the start of a heating session, I have come round to thinking it may be the main fan?

I will be getting my original installer round to sort it out under the guarantee, but does anyone out there have any theories as to what it actually is - and what would could cause such a fault in the first year of use?

Many thanks

 

[jpc1964]

Hi,

I have the self same situation with this boiler and no fix as yet. Can you tell me what the problem was - assuming you have now got it fixed.

Kind regards
Jason

 

[Dotty]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

Afraid you need a gassafe registered engineer to look at this. Please post a request in the looking for a gas engineer / plumber section of these forums, not forgetting your location.

 

[jpc1964]

I am a gas safe engineer - just hopes someone had the fix for this problem before having to check out fan, condensate pump etc.

 

[Dotty]

Ok me old mate. I'm sure you can understand we don't want to post too much about this sort of thing in open forum in order to protect non competent persons from themselves. Can you please pm One of the admins, Dan, Dave or Mr Doberman, with your gsr details and they'll give you access to the gsr engineers only forum where we can discuss this openly.

 

[Poxi]

Dirty system, Probally..Try boiler noise silencer (Chemical) as a matter of elimination

 

[jpc1964]

Ok, new to this so not sure what the form is. Will send message as requested.

As this guy had posted his problem but there weren't any replies, I was hoping he got it sorted and could give me the cause.

Cheers

 

[jpc1964]

Noise coming exclusively from boiler as described in 1st post. I don't think it's a dirty system but will look into. Many thanks.

 

[Mick10256]

Is this thread still alive? I've been out on one of these too. What seems to be happening is as the boiler modulates down from full power, a few minutes after initial fire up, the fan reaches a critical speed where the whole system resonates emitting a loud moan lasting about a minute. Once it settles it's quiet. The fan is fine, boiler is only 18 months old.

 

[Poxi]

What are the CO/Co2 readings when it ramps down ??

 

[Mick10256]

Will have a look when my FGA comes back from calibration.

 

[Mick10256]

Right, been back on this one a couple of times mainly out of curiosity. CO2 9.2 ratio 0.0008. Doesn't change much on ramping down. Goes a bit unstable when noisy but lasts only a few seconds so FGA can't really settle. Interesting as the weather has got colder the problem has gone away. I guess this is because it doesn't modulate down as much. Was first called on this one in summer when providing only hot water. Will be interesting to see if problem returns in spring.

 

[Mick10256]

Fixed. Pump bearings causing modulation of water flow. Set up resonance in very tinny boiler construction. Tried to post more info but got deleted. If anyone wants more info PM me.

 

[Fallingdown]

Hi just joined the forum and I have the same problem. It's for a builder I do quite a lot of plumbing and gas work for and I've been back 3 times, starting to feel like a bit of a t!t. I did notice the pitch changed as I turned the pump up but as the noise was coming from the boiler I thought it was the fan speeding up to compensate for the higher volume of water going through the heat exchanger, so I put a new fan on and no joy. I'm not sure how to pm but if you could pm me that would be great. I can send my gsr number as proof if you like,just not sure how, do I just post it in one of these reply boxes ? Cheers