Leaking gas boiler heat exchanger - only option is replace boiler ?

gavinp

We have an old Myson Orion conventional gas boiler which seems to have a minor leak. We have a external programmable room thermostat which reduces the temperature overnight and each morning we have about half a litre of liquid in the bucket we have placed below the boiler. It does not leak at all during the day if the heating is on.

I think that the problem is thermal expansion and as the boiler cools, this is causing the small leak.

I have had a gas engineer inspect the boiler and he says that it is the heat exchanger leaking. I spoke to another who said that it was the heat exchanger over the phone without even looking at it !

I tried some central heating leak sealer from Screwfix but that doesn't seem to have made any difference.

Is there any way to fix this other than replacing the boiler ? Getting hold of a replacement heat exchanger is also proving difficult.

I am reasonably happy with plumbing DIY although for obvious reasons don't touch the boiler itself.

Thanks

Gavin

djheath

Definitely get a second or third opinion to see if anything else can be done.

Have a look at this website: http://www.keeptheheaton.com/
to see if you can get the exchanger. I have used them to buy some bits for my old boiler that plumbers said they couldn't get! Then got someone decent to fit them!

Good luck!

ormus

if its an old boiler its worth weighing up the cost of repair or complete replacement.
a heat exchanger can be about 250 quid, plus fitting charges. total can easy be 500 quid or more.
you can buy new boilers for not much more than that. say 500/800.

gavinp

Thanks for the replies.

Both plumbers I spoke about earlier quoted around £1500 to replace with a new boiler...

I would prefer to keep my existing boiler if possible as it has been very reliable up to this point and I am not too convinced by the benefits of condensing boilers.

Thanks

Gavin

gavinp

No reply from KeepTheHeatOn unfortunately - any other ideas ?

Thanks

Gavin

gavinp

Update: after trying a couple more things, I found an old non-MSE forum post advising to tighten the pipes going into the boiler at the top.

I duly tried this and neither of the two water feed pipes seemed to move - however the leak did stop (for the time being at least!) :T

The suspicion is that one of the nuts has moved a tiny bit which twisted the pipework and/or seals.

Worth a try if you are in a similar situation although obviously no guarantee it will work for everyone.

Thanks

Gavin