combi boiler- pressure gauge

wilmaflintstone

Hiya everyone!, have recently had new combi boiler- central heating system installed courtesy of Warmfront, have never had combi before and am worrying myself silly because of this pressure guage. If it moves down over a few days does this mean I have a leak? I am also noticing a strange smell in certain parts of the house, could this indicate a leak under floorboards that might not be enough to be noticed, as [EMAIL="i@m"]i@m[/EMAIL] sure engineer said something like "if it leaks it will stop itself". Don't get it. Any useful advice on this and combis in general will be much appreciated.

EliteHeat

Your pressure gauge should not go down over a few days - a little over a few months is more normal.

If it keeps dropping below the point where the boiler cannot start and you have to keep re-pressurising it then you have a problem and the installers should be called back.

If, on the other hand, you are noticing the pressure drop as the system cools then this is perfectly normal.

It would help if you could say what the pressures drops by and over what period of time.

wilmaflintstone

Thanks for reply EliteHeat,guage was on 1.4 bar, I didn't have central heating on at all for 3 days, just used hot water and now it's gone down to 1.2 bar. I put CH on tonight for an hour and noticed some of rads were hotter at top than bottom I know that means they need bleeding but would that affect pressure? Sorry to be so dumb!:rotfl:thanks again.

macman

Rads hotter at top than bottom does not indicate that they need bleeding. It indicates that there is sludge in the system. Did they flush it properly when they removed the old boiler?
The pressure gauge measures pressure in the boiler, not pressure in your CH circuit.
If the boiler pressure is dropping steadily then there is a leak somewhere that requires attention.

wilmaflintstone

Thanks for reply macman, all rads are new thats why I assumed they needed bleeding but i am clueless on these matters.

macman

wilmaflintstone wrote: »

Thanks for reply macman, all rads are new thats why I assumed they needed bleeding but i am clueless on these matters.

Bleeding is required when they are colder at the top.Very likely on a new system so why not bleed them anyway?

ariba10

macman wrote: »

Rads hotter at top than bottom does not indicate that they need bleeding. It indicates that there is sludge in the system. Did they flush it properly when they removed the old boiler?
The pressure gauge measures pressure in the boiler, not pressure in your CH circuit.
If the boiler pressure is dropping steadily then there is a leak somewhere that requires attention.

The pressure in the system will be the same as the pressure in the boiler.

EliteHeat

macman wrote: »

The pressure gauge measures pressure in the boiler, not pressure in your CH circuit.

Complete nonsense.