Boiler 'booming'!

mark5

The condensing pipe was constantly freezing on our Ideal Isar combi boiler a few weeks back, I now put a plastic bottle of boiling water next to (touching) the pipe where it was freezing on a daily basis and have not had the problem since, it only takes me 5 mins a day and I will continue to do this until the cold spell ends.
The heating is on 24/7 this time of year and you would hear the gurgling and banging noises when the boiler was trying to fire up.

Spiggle

Thanks mark5,

The pipe wasn't frozen today but we still went through the rigmarole of defrosting anyway.

gas4you wrote: »

... Make sure the chap removes the condensate trap tomorrow. I've had these block up in less than a year with the aluminium oxide. The trap needs cleaning out with a flat blaed screwdriver and back flushing as well.

I obviously haven't a clue who, or how good the chap who done your service was, but there are an awful lot out there that don't clean this trap as part of the service.

Gas4you, you certainly know your stuff! :T Thanks so much for the advice. :A

Long story short npo*er sent their engineer to an address 30 or more miles away then rang to say they couldn't get an answer and that they couldn't send anyone else today. :mad: They stated if I could get someone they would reimburse me. Through yours and others advice on here I used the Gas Safe register and found a plumber who is two streets away from me. He was here in 10 minutes and I told him the saga and that I believed the condensate trap was blocked with aluminium oxide. (I actually managed to make it sound like I knew what I was talking about!)

He then proceeded to take the panel off the front of trap, scrape out loads of aluminium oxide build up, vacuumed that out, with a fair bit of difficulty got the top of the waste pipe and it's attached black plastic gubbins (sorry not technical speak I know) off and then scraped loads of aluminium deposit out of that, flushed it all through, put water in the trap, blew through it to check it was no longer blocked and now it's all back together and working again. And the guy only charged me £30! :beer:

Your post above should be put as a sticky for all who have the same condensing boiler as me. :T:beer::T

The boiler has been annually serviced and regularly repaired by BG since the initial 12 month warranty expired up until August of this year when I switched to npo*er. I have never ever seen this trap be cleaned out before and the amount that was removed just now seems to indicate that too.

Thank you once again for such wonderful advice.

All the very best,
Spigs

Bronnie

Bronnie wrote: »

I've got the same boiler , about 4 years old and in good order. Had it checked out and put on a contract only a couple of months ago, no problems. Sometimes it sounds like a jet taking off, but all appears to be OK otherwise!

Haha, spoke too soon! Just got back from Xmas break this afternoon, to find all my electrics off. Eventually twigged it was the boiler (left on auto at a low temp while we were away) that had tripped the mains. Must have happened soon after we left, as freezer was semi defrosted. Got the electric back on and a gas fire, waiting for the engineer to come tomorrow as switching the boiler back on is tripping the mains.

Hey ho! icy bedroom reminds me of my childhood.

gas4you

Sadly these boilers must be stripped and serviced properly annually. A BG service with just a FGA into the flue to get the readings is no good.

These boilers have about the worst name in the industry, myself being one who says so, but I still find most of the breakdowns are through the boiler not being properly serviced.

I have also sadly had to replace many of these boilers at around 3-4 years old. If the trap isn't cleaned out properly the condensate can back up and cause the main HE to fail.

Bronnie

To be honest, it's been some years since I've seen a boiler being "properly" serviced.

This Ideal boiler is under a contract with a local company, but the initial inspection/service was fairly superficial, despite him spending a goodly time thoroughly servicing my gas fire (separate job) at the same visit, ewhich I thought I'd try out as not overly enthralled with BG

I have 2 rental properties with Worcester boilers under BG contracts and they seem to have very quick services each time. I do recall an engineer saying a few years ago there wasn't much to service on combis...........

I csan't see a coindensate pipe coming out of the wall anywhere with this boiler anyway.

Your input to this thread is interesting. Thanks!

gas4you

Apart from the condensate trap and sump cover being removed, these must also have the burner removed to check inside the combustion chamber. This is to check the insulation panels are still intact and the electrodes are all ok. The spark electrodes tend to bend out of shape roughly every 2 or 3 years and will cause ignition problems.

You are also supposed to pour very hot, or boiling water through the combustion chamber to clean it as you cannot get any form of blade into it.

I usually takes around 45mins to an hour to strip this boiler out and service it properly.