Combi Boilers - Help Please

robowen

jack_pott wrote:

That's what the gas board kept doing for over 16 years.


It's been OK for about 12 years now.

This means that your problems began around 28 years ago :doh:

I think you'll find that technology has moved on a bit since then, or at least in the 12 years since you've had no trouble. :j

To get 16 years service out of a water heater is good service, to keep it going for 16 years is great work by the gas board. There is not much else they could have done to repair it.

I personally would have changed it long before then !

To get 12 years out of it is about average I suppose.

There are other various safeguards built into these heaters nowerdays to stop them exploding such as pressure relief valves / temperature relief valves / thermal cut-outs etc etc.

It's possible your problems were caused purely and simply by old technology, by this I'm referring to your explosions.
As for the limescale, there is no definitive thing to stop limescale full stop, only gadgets that 'help' reduce it.

rob

[Deleted User]

robowen wrote:

To get 16 years service out of a water heater is good service, to keep it going for 16 years is great work by the gas board. There is not much else they could have done to repair it.
rob

Firstly it's the "new" one that's around 28 years old, the one that they claimed needed replacing was nearly new. Judging by the figures quoted on this site if I replaced the heater every 16 years it would cost more than the gas it uses.
Since the house was built in 1947 it's only had three heaters. The first was only replaced when we went over to natural gas in the early seventies. It was fine apart from that.
The second one was fine for a while, but then suddenly started playing up, I've always suspected that the water board stopped softening the water at source around that time.
What I meant by incompetence is really more like negligence, shrugging their shoulders and pretending they didn't know what to do for years, when all along there was a modification to fix it. You may not be able to prevent scaling, but the fact remains that since the modification 12 years ago I've not had a single failure.