Shower keeps going cold

calleyw

I have an 18 and half year old combi boiler.  I run a bar Shower off of it.  The said shower is about 5/6 years old and has been playing up and getting worse over the last few weeks.  It gets warms for a couple of minutes and then goes cold.  Turn it off and leave it then it might get warm again. I tested with running hot water from the kitchen tap and the same issue really hot then stone cold.  Thats says to me its a boiler issue.  

Did a quick search and from the answers I found.   I am guessing its a issue with the heat exchange in the boiler.  Had a quick look on line looks like the part is £200 +,  then labour for fitting.

Anything else I am missing that it could be?  I will be getting the person who services the boiler in to have a look.  They have suggested in the past that the parts are still available for my model of boiler.  So fingers crossed its an easy fix as other wise it will be cold showers as I don't have the £3k for a new boiler!!!!

Flugelhorn

certainly ours did just this and it was the heat exchanger  - bill was £400 for parts, labour and annual service 

GDB2222

Flugelhorn said:

certainly ours did just this and it was the heat exchanger  - bill was £400 for parts, labour and annual service 

I'll second that, except it was WB and they did it under the warranty.

ThisIsWeird

Hi Calley.

Make and model of the boiler?

My ol' GlowWorm still does this every couple of years, even tho' I fitted a magnetic filter (it's usually a slow accumulation of sludge that blocks the fine channels inside the PtoP exchanger). Got it down to a fine art - around 30 minutes work, and a £25 reconditioned 'changer on eBay.

Ok, I doubt you're going to do this yourself, but a friendly plumber may be happy to use a recon item, and save you a small fortune. Of course, it won't come with any warranty.

You might even find a NOS item on t'Bay.

Make and model? :-)

calleyw

ThisIsWeird said:

Hi Calley.

Make and model of the boiler?

My ol' GlowWorm still does this every couple of years, even tho' I fitted a magnetic filter (it's usually a slow accumulation of sludge that blocks the fine channels inside the PtoP exchanger). Got it down to a fine art - around 30 minutes work, and a £25 reconditioned 'changer on eBay.

Ok, I doubt you're going to do this yourself, but a friendly plumber may be happy to use a recon item, and save you a small fortune. Of course, it won't come with any warranty.

You might even find a NOS item on t'Bay.

Make and model? :-)

No I won't be doing it myself.  I don't touch the boiler unless I have to such such as a top up of water or change the timer. I will be talking to the gas safe engineer who services the boiler.  As I thought it was a passing phase as it did on odd occasion and it was left with until it gets worse then deal with it. And now we can't have a shower with out it going cold. Which is a massive pain.

ThisIsWeird

Cough, make and model?

rob7475

Sounds like the P2P heat exchanger to me too. Make and model of boiler will help. If it's a 'decent' brand, it may be worth speaking to the manufacturer - some will offer a one off repair for a fixed fee including parts. 

calleyw

rob7475 said:

Sounds like the P2P heat exchanger to me too. Make and model of boiler will help. If it's a 'decent' brand, it may be worth speaking to the manufacturer - some will offer a one off repair for a fixed fee including parts. 

Its a worcester bosch and 18 and half years old.  And one that I have since found out was only in production for a year.  Have been told parts are easy to obtain.

calleyw

ThisIsWeird said:

Cough, make and model?

Thanks for the help.  But I will be getting in my gas safe engineer.  And get a brand new part, which will porbably out live the boiler!!!!  Its done well to get to this age with out an issue like this before.  As we are in hard water area

FreeBear

Would pay to fit a limescale inhibitor to the main cold feed if you don't already have one. Turning down the temperature for hot water will also help - The higher the temperature you heat water to, the more limescale is deposited.

calleyw

FreeBear said:

Would pay to fit a limescale inhibitor to the main cold feed if you don't already have one. Turning down the temperature for hot water will also help - The higher the temperature you heat water to, the more limescale is deposited.

Yes my partner loves to have it scald your skin off temp.  But at 18 and half years old I think the boiler has done ok.  just need to nurse it on for a while as I don't have the £3K for a replacement.  Going to struggle to find the money to pay for the job as it is so can't afford the extra.  Just spent £1400 on having the car fixed and that could need doing again in 18 months time.  But again no money to replace the car!!! But thanks the info