Leaking boiler - is it dead?

travel_freak

Hi there,

Hope someone can give me some advice. Have just bought a flat. It has a gas combination boiler. I haven't been able to test the central heating and boiler because the flat has a card gas meter which has a lot of debt on so have to wait for that to be cleared before I can charge card.

Have only just thawed out now after spending a freezing day down at the flat!

Today I had builders round to quote for various things including checking boiler and saying it's safe. When one of the builders looked at the connections there was a flexible kind of pipe loop thing which was completely disconnected. He connected it to both ends and then turned a valve to fill the boiler. The pressure started rising and he said it looked alright but then it started to drip water - it has a leak. The leak is coming from the bottom, left hand side of the boiler.

The builder said I will probably need a new boiler at a cost of £1,800!! - when I got back up off the floor, he said this isn't a good make of boiler so it wouldn't be worth repairing. It is Halstead which the builder said is from Wickes.

Does anyone know what might be causing the leak and is this likely to be fatal or repairable. Does anyone have any comment on Halstead boilers in general and whether it's worth the cost of trying to fix this problem (also what I should be charged for someone looking at it and attempting to fix it).

Many thanks in advance.

Regards,

Browntoa

I suspect the heat exchanger unit...about £120

it's worth taking the covers off and seeing exactly where it drips from

when my exchanger went you could blatently see it leaking from the thing !!!

was not the hardest job in the world to swap

http://www.onlineboilerspares.co.uk/shop/index.php?cPath=22_66_399&osCsid=5d769efcbfd17449575c30fb1b66a43a

fatnbald

I purchased and fitted a new heat exchanger 12 months ago for our combi boiler, it is a Worcester Bosch 28 SI model.

Everywhere I looked was exactly the same price of 180 odd quid plus VAT.

Fitted it myself (does not affect any of the gas areas) in about 2 hrs, taking my time, then refilling the system, unless you are pretty handy, or know someone who is, I would advise you get someone to fit it though.

Talking to a heating engineer I know he reckons the pressure these systems run at should be towards the minimum end of the scale (1 bar on mine) as he believes the higher pressures cause the leaks.

Canucklehead

Hi

Take off the outer casing and look up to the top left you might see a small clear plastic pipe coming out of the heat exchanger casing if that is dripping then it's the auto air vent inside the casing.
You could spend some time stripping it down and cleaning it or just buy a new one.(auto vent that is!)

Good luck.
Corgi guy.

travel_freak

Thanks so much for the replies.

I'm not really handy and am really reluctant to tinker with the boiler in case I blow myself up! But your hints are really helpful as I'm totally in the dark with plumbers - the guy I had yesterday was a jack of all trades and he just said oh yeah it's probably broken beyond repair and I'd be better off changing it. Easy to say but not easy to do when you're talking about almost £2,000!!

At least I can get some other plumbers round now to look at it and quote and sound a bit more knowledgeable than I am by asking if it could just be the heat exchanger.

It's so hard to find people who are honest these days (grumble, grumble).

Canucklehead

Go here and put you post code in and try the resulting list of engineers .
https://www.trustcorgi.com

You shouldn't find any jack of all trades here.

Good luck.
Corgi Guy.

plumb1_2

Could just the o ring seals that are leaking, if it has been drained drain down and left empty, the seals could have just dreid out. Just thightening them usualy works.

Same with the auto air-vent CG stated.