Intermittent hot water issue worcester bosch 24 i junior

manan.shah.82

Hello,

For last one week we are having an intermittent hot water issue in the bathroom (wash basin, standing shower and bath). Kitchen sink and central heating seems to be working fine.

I had a gas safe engineer to check the problem and after trying for a while he said most of the things looks okay so there may be an issue with either pump or heat exchange.

This morning he installed a new pump but it didn't make any difference so he said he'll try to clean the heat exchanger/boiler with some chemical and see if it helps. He's thinking that may help because kitchen tap is working fine there might be some minor blockage and it may be cleaned with chemical otherwise we'll have to replace the heat exchanger.

I think this person in genuine and he even didn't charge for me labour saying it's not fair because he hasn't fixed the issue and I have paid for the pump(£70) which may be working all right (new one is installed in boiler and old one is with me).

But just wanted to make sure we are not barking against the wrong tree?
Has anyone had similar issue and fixed?
Can anyone suggest anything else?
I really don't want to spend about £400 for heat exchanger

thank you.

I_have_spoken

so there may be an issue with either pump or heat exchange

No logic to that diagnosis if kitchen H/W and C/H work OK, IMHO. The kitchen H/W tap is on the same pipe coming from boiler as the bathroom H/W unless you have a very odd set-up.

I'd say your man is indeed a cowboy, on a combi the H/W comes from mains pressure, the pump is used to circulate C/H water through the radiators. Hopefully you can recoup some of the £70 by Ebaying the pump...

What do you mean by 'intermittent'? Does the water flow come and go, or is the flow steady and it goes hot/cold/hot?

Any chance there is a gate valve or isolation point somewhere along the h/w pipe feeding the bathroom h/w outlets? That may have got partly blocked if you're in a hard water area - gate valves in particular are accidents waiting to happen IMHO.

plumb1_2

Most RGI can repair/diagnose boiler problems. As proves why the rgi changed the pump WHY????????????????

If you are getting hot water to the kitchen and not the bathroom, possibly a part blocked heat X if the kitchen is first off.

. Do you have mixer/mono type taps in your bathroom? Not uncommon for a faulty tap/shower to send cold water back into the hot water pipes.

manan.shah.82

I_have_spoken wrote: »

What do you mean by 'intermittent'? Does the water flow come and go, or is the flow steady and it goes hot/cold/hot?

Sorry I should have been more clear. Yes, it goes hot (for couple of minutes), then cold (for few minutes, I have found turning the shower off and then on sometimes much quicker) and then hot again....

Also, this started on Sunday afternoon and before that I bleeded my radiators. I'm have no idea in this area but I can not establish any relation between these two but this started happening after that only.

manan.shah.82

plumb1 wrote: »

Most RGI can repair/diagnose boiler problems. As proves why the rgi changed the pump WHY????????????????

If you are getting hot water to the kitchen and not the bathroom, possibly a part blocked heat X if the kitchen is first off.

. Do you have mixer/mono type taps in your bathroom? Not uncommon for a faulty tap/shower to send cold water back into the hot water pipes.

I'm not sure whether kitchen tap is first off, can I find out this on my own? I can ask the guy when he comes for cleaning blockage?

Yes, my wash basin has mixer tap. It all started after I bleeded my radiators and then my wife went for shower....

Person who came to fix this he did mention that Powerflush will take long time and if he does everything it will take full day but he'll only do boiler and it should be done in couple of worries.

I_have_spoken

Person who came to fix this he did mention that Powerflush

Oh dear. Change pump...replace heat exchanger...power flush...is he wearing a stetson and rode up on a horse

this started on Sunday afternoon and before that I bleeded my radiators

Did you check the pressure in the combi and refill if needed?

manan.shah.82

I_have_spoken wrote: »

Oh dear. Change pump...replace heat exchanger...power flush...is he wearing a stetson and rode up on a horse



Did you check the pressure in the combi and refill if needed?

Yes, water pressure never went down (I bleeded bathroom radiator, topped up water as it pressure approaching near 1, bleeded other radiators and waster pressure was above 1 so didn't top-up after that) and it always stays between 1-3.

British Gas quote was really high £99 (one-off) + £23 pm and I didn't think it will cost me so much to fix this issue so I went for the local gas safe engineer...if power flush doesn't fix..I'm thinking about going with the BG engineer because I think (not sure) it will include labour + parts and mainly peace of mind for at least 1 yr.

Is it wise to do that way?

buglawton

Check lowest parts of the pipework for blockages using a magnet.

southcoastrgi

are in a hard water area ? if so do you have a scale inhibitor fitted on the cold supply to the boiler ?

manan.shah.82

southcoastrgi wrote: »

are in a hard water area ? if so do you have a scale inhibitor fitted on the cold supply to the boiler ?

Yes I'm in a hard water area but I don't have any inhibitor applied to calcify/soften the water.