Please Please Help Me!

TerminallyShortOfCash

Hello All.

We have been having terriblre problems with our boiler - it always stops working in the week between Christmas and New Year and then tends to pack up again in February. When we have the heating on, the radiators upstairs get stupidly hot (regardless of what temp the thermostat is at) whilst the radiators downstairs barely get warm. In the summer, we turn the heating off completely, but keep the hot water on. This summer, we have turned the heating off as usual, but have lost hot water too. We switched the hot water back on and the radiators came on too. We have had it off for about 6 weeks now and have been heating water in a kettle to do the washing up and things (thank God we have an electric shower that heats its own water!) My OH put the hot water back on and the header tank flooded and water came pouring out of the loft, through the airing cupboard and through the ceilings. I have just had the local plumber out to take a look and he said that not only is the boiler knackered, but it's dangerous too - it seems that it vents out of the back wall of the house, but when the weather is windy it blows the boiler light out and we can smell gas (we have to go running upstairs to open all the windows.) He has also said that our pipes are too small (I think he said that they were 1/2in and needed to be 3/4in) so as well as having the boiler replaced, we'd need to have all the pipework replaced too - which will mean removing plaster from the walls and chipboard panels from the floor (we don't have floorboards). From what I can gather, our house was rebuilt by a bunch of cowboys in 1982 and they've botched masses of different things. He said that we need to vent it through the ceiling of the back room, through the loft and out through the tiled roof. I asked him if it would be possible just to have the boiler overhauled but he laughed and said he'd have to fit a combination boiler (whatever one of those is!!?)
I'm stunned that we will have to have all the pipes replaced - does this sound right? I'm terrified of being ripped off and it's so hard to know who to trust. We had a look at the WarmFront initiative but we don't qualify.

Thankyou for reading this mammoth post!! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

TSOC

Malestrom

Get someone else in and see what they say. Central heating pipes should be in 22mm (3/4" is 19mm) and hot/cold are run in 15mm (1/2" is 13mm) although sometimes the hot is piped in 22mm to the bathroom. He should be recommending a condensing boiler not a combination boiler if it needs replacing. Perhaps one of the plumbers can comment on using 15mm for central heating, I expect its far from ideal so yes, you might need your pipes replacing if you are being told the truth.

Sounds to me like someone wants the job of replacing the lot rather than fixing what you have...

Prudent

I would get several opinions on this, it sounds like a very pricey job. As it is so hot at the moment, you do at least have the luxury of having some time to make decisions.

dan23uk

all new boilers nowdays are condensing (since april '05 i believe), so you can get condensing combi's, or standard system condensing boilers.

15mm is a perfectly ok for the central heating system, as this is what most central heating systems rum, some old systems even run off of 8mm! It's just the flow and return connections at the boiler that will be 22mm.

if you have a new boiler installed, without replacing any pipework, the system should be chemically flushed (note: not powerflushed) which may help or solve the problem, but it cant be guaranteed that the problem wont come back, especially if its a build up of sludge causing a blockage, hence causing the water tank to overflow.

it may be the case that another plumber/gas engineer could fix your boiler/bring it up to safety standards, but if the boiler is getting old, it is probably worth spending the money on a new boiler rather than just throwing money at the old one in the hope that it keeps going for a few more years.

as others have said, get as many quotes/different opinions as possible before deciding on what route to take.

hope this is of some help,

dan (corgi engineer)

TerminallyShortOfCash

Hello.

I just wanted to say thank you for your suggestions - I've been on the phone this morning and we have another three people coming out to give quotes over the next couple of weeks - will have to wait and see what they say

Thanks again
TSOC