Vokera 20-80 rs Flowmatic boiler problems!

bananz

Hi all! Hoping the boiler specialists among you can give me a few pointers please! I am very DIY-unsavvy, so please bear with me!

We inherited our Flowmatic when we bought our 1st house in April and until now it has been very effective (if noisy). However, it has recently started making a bang when firing up and a squelchy noise for a few minutes when heating or hot water comes on and then yesterday the pilot light kept going out and it is difficult to relight. The pressure is also requiring to be topped up more and more frequently.

What do you think the best course of action is?

Any best guesses on how much the work would be to keep the old girl going for another winter? Or would we be better installing a new boiler despite it meaning we'd need to take out a loan to finance it? We're in Glasgow btw.

Many thanks!

Ben84

bananz wrote: »

Hi all! Hoping the boiler specialists among you can give me a few pointers please! I am very DIY-unsavvy, so please bear with me!

We inherited our Flowmatic when we bought our 1st house in April and until now it has been very effective (if noisy). However, it has recently started making a bang when firing up and a squelchy noise for a few minutes when heating or hot water comes on and then yesterday the pilot light kept going out and it is difficult to relight. The pressure is also requiring to be topped up more and more frequently.

What do you think the best course of action is?

Any best guesses on how much the work would be to keep the old girl going for another winter? Or would we be better installing a new boiler despite it meaning we'd need to take out a loan to finance it? We're in Glasgow btw.

Many thanks!

It's clearly doing some new unwelcome things, so I think you should get it serviced and see what turns up. It may just need cleaning inside. I know I have trouble keeping my boiler's pilot light lit if there is dirt inside the boiler - which is pretty common as open flue boilers pull in dust and hair with the air from the house all the time they're running. The dust burns, but deposits grime over time. The bang when it lights also suggests gas is building up before it ignites, which may also mean a weak pilot light flame.

rob7475

Hi,

We used to have the same boiler and although they are old, if looked after, they are great.

You might want to consider ringing vokera. They used to do a fixed price repair for about £170 (may be more or less now) which covers any parts that are needed + labour. We used this service with ours and they changed fan, pump etc and gave us a 12 month guarantee.

southcoastrgi

agree with both of the above