Help needed after a power flush please

needmorefreebies

Hi

I had my system power flushed yesterday. I have a baxi solo 2 boiler around 15 years old. After turning my heating on this year I had only partial heat around the house, it was better when I turned most of the upstairs radiators off but still only had the top half of my downstairs radiators hots & the bottom warm, so thought a power flush would sort it. My system was really dirty but when the boiler was switched on my plumber said that there was air in the system which would take a while to work its way out, which is fine. The radiators were warmer upstairs than down and I still had the same problem with hot & the top & cold at the bottom however the house was warm last night.

This morning the boiler came on at 6 & when I checked it at 6.30 the pump was still running & the boiler was off. I have switched the pump on a couple of times this morning but the boiler only stays on for 5-10 mins before going off & leaving the pump running. i have now noticed that all the lights are out on the boiler so that when I switch the pump on the boiler doesnt even fire up

Now its worse that it was before the flush because I have virtually no heat at all!

Any ideas on what I can do to get it working properly

Sorry to waffle on!!

Sue

thechippy

Sounds like there is air in the system to the point that the boiler may be switching off on it's overheat t/stat. If your rads are still much hotter at the top,, there could still possibly be sludge at the bottom. Either that, or the rads are not balanced. The rad/s nearest the boiler flow may be getting the majority of flow, depriving others. If when you shut some rads off, the others get hot all the way down, then they need balancing. Inadequate flow through a rad can cause it to be hot at the top and colder at the bottom, just as sludge can.

needmorefreebies

thanks, well I know there isnt any sludge because of the flush yesterday. The boiler's overheat light doesnt come on it just switches off and for the short period of time that the boiler is switched on I can feel a little heat in the radiators downstairs. Hopefully my plumber will be back later today & he is going to check out the pump as well.

I did try turning all the radiators off & leaving the one furthest from the boiler open to try & get them working one at a time but that didnt work either.

Anyway thanks for your reponse, I hope it IS just air!

thechippy

Hiya,

Let us know how you get on later. Always interesting to know what it was.
It's a good idea of his to check the pump as well. Just because you can hear/feel them running, it does not mean they are necessarily pushing any/much water around. It could have a damaged impellar.

needmorefreebies

hi well ll i had my pump changed. Last night it seemed to do the trick, the rads were all nicely warm but this morning its a different story. The pump is so noisy, my plumber says its the air trapped in the system??

The boiler came on this morning for 1 minute then switched off, the pump was still going and the rads started to get warm, 2 minutes later the boiler came backa minute then wnet back off and has not been on since, I dont understand why the pump is continually on and not the boiler. The temperature on the lounge thermostat is nowhere near its current setting.

Im starting to wish I hadnt bothered!!!! We have switched off now and gone back to the gas fire : (

Any advice gladly received

thanks

albyota

when the plumber powerflushed, do you you know where he did this from, if he took the pump off and flushed from between the two valves (easiest option) then its likely he has replaced the pump but put it on the wrong way round (upside down) (there is an arrow on the pump to show direction of flow) this will cause exactly what you are experiencing, get him back to check. have all the radiators been bled of air? will you use him again? was he a heating engineer or just someone with a powerflush machine?

needmorefreebies

he powerflushed downstairs first he took my kitchen radiator off then he went upstairs and removed the pump & flushed from there. I have checked the pump the arrow is pointing downwards in the direction of the water flow. I bled all the rads yesterday and didnt get any air out.

He is my usual plumber I have used him for a number of years for various plumbing jobs and have never had a problem before. I am hoping he can fix this without me having to pay out much more than it has already cost me

Cardew

needmorefreebies wrote: »

I dont understand why the pump is continually on and not the boiler.

The boiler will be off because the temperature of the water at the boiler is at the set temperature e.g. 70C or 80C

It seems pretty obvious that the water is not circulating for one reason or another.

albyota

Is there a Motorised valve (Zone) (diverter), (a honeywell silver box with black cable) is there one or two, S plan or Y plan, are they fuctioning OK?

needmorefreebies

ok that seems feasible as the pipe from the boiler to the pump was roasting hot but the radiators were cool. Do you have an idea why the water isnt circulating?

As far as I knw the valve is working , my plumber checked this

albyota

when he powerflushed, was the heating on, if not, the valves would have been closed, unless he manually opened them, crud/sludge could be stopping the valves full travel....
give the valves a good tap....use the metal lever at the back to throw the valve open a few times.