Boiler - water pressure dropping

Beans27

Hi all, sorry if this is the wrong board.


Moved into a house 6 months ago. Pretty sure the boiler isn't the newest but seemed to be working ok, the previous owners had a British Gas home care policy and left the previous service check.


Recently the water pressure has been dropping frequently (approx. every other day) and has to be topped up before it will work. Not ideal, our water bill has also doubled which I guess might have something to do with this.


What do you think is the best course of action - get a BG engineer out to see if they can fix the problem (told me they work on tier pricing >30mins £79, >2 hours £199, more than 2 hours £400!!)? Get a local company out? Or another option that I haven't thought of......


Thanks in advance.

kaya

Why would you not call the manufacturer to repair it? They will have all the parts available and the technical knowledge of their own product that should mean the fault is diagnosed and rectified quickly resulting in a smaller labour charge

elsien

Might not be the boiler, you could have a leak on your pipework elsewhere. Have you checked all the radiators etc? It can be hard to spot if the heating on as the water can evaporate rather than gather. Although if it's losing water every couple of days, you may have a giveaway puddle somewhere, ideally not under the floor.

Beans27

Well there you go - that is an option that didn't occur to me! Didn't realise the manufacturer would be interested if there wasn't a warranty or something. I shall work out who that is and try them, thanks.


Elsien, I think the radiators need bleeding, a couple of them hardly get warm at all. Not seen any puddles anywhere, so I'm not sure how someone technical would work out if there might be one under the floor.....


Thanks.

elsien

As a starting point go round very carefully checking all the pipes and joints you can see. When my boiler was losing pressure it was a small leak on a join to a bedroom radiator. Wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been looking, as the water was evaporating before hitting the carpet, but it left a bit if a rusty mark where it was running down.
No point paying for someone to come out at look at the boiler if the problem is elsewhere. They'll just tell you the boiler is fine then go away again.

espresso

Beans27 wrote: »

Recently the water pressure has been dropping frequently (approx. every other day) and has to be topped up before it will work. Not ideal, our water bill has also doubled which I guess might have something to do with this.

Your pressure vessel may simply need re-pressurising or if the diaphragm is holed it would need to be replaced.

Check outside for a short 1/2" copper pipe that should be bent back to the wall. Attach a food bag over the end of this pipe and see if you catch any water when the boiler is used again.

Beans27

Thank you espresso, I will bear that in mind and have a look at the weekend.