Vaillant condensing boiler freezing - minimising condensate?

WIAWSNB

It can also be drained via your internal plastic waste - say kitchen undersink plumbing.

Bear in mind that condensate is slightly acidic, and will damage some surfaces such as masonry and metal - it'll eat through a copper pipe, for instance. 

If you can take a photo of the pipe tomorrow, that would be great - we can advise if lagging might help. It doesn't need to fully surround the pipe. The freezing is probably a borderline occurrence, so anything at all will likely sort it. 

BooJewels

WIAWSNB said:

It can also be drained via your internal plastic waste - say kitchen undersink plumbing.

Bear in mind that condensate is slightly acidic, and will damage some surfaces such as masonry and metal - it'll eat through a copper pipe, for instance. 

If you can take a photo of the pipe tomorrow, that would be great - we can advise if lagging might help. It doesn't need to fully surround the pipe. The freezing is probably a borderline occurrence, so anything at all will likely sort it. 

It's too far from any internal waste pipes, on the opposite side of the house from all the plumbing, so I don't think that's a practical solution - I'd been thinking about that too - probably why it was done this way in the first instance.

I was prepping to go outside and warm the pipe again before bed and heard the boiler go a bit louder with the watery sounds again, so I went out and applied warm water and as I did so, could hear crackling within the condensate pipe and chunks of ice falling and as they did, the boiler calmed and started running smoothly again. 

I've increased the boiler temp to 68°C and having just warmed the pipe, hope it's good enough for overnight.  I'll sort a photo tomorrow if I can  - I'm a bit reluctant to go out over snow, as I broke my leg in several places after a fall on snow - about the last time it did this, as I was in my boot on crutches and had to call BG out as I couldn't fix it on my own then, as I couldn't get down the back step. 

I suspect that you're right - that it won't need much to make a difference - as it doesn't happen often and maybe some insulation/lagging will be enough to tip the balance.

Good night and thanks all for the assistance everyone, it's appreciated.

WIAWSNB

Wow - must be cold where you are! Where are you?

grumpy_codger

BooJewels said:

WIAWSNB said:

It can also be drained via your internal plastic waste - say kitchen undersink plumbing.

Bear in mind that condensate is slightly acidic, and will damage some surfaces such as masonry and metal - it'll eat through a copper pipe, for instance. 

If you can take a photo of the pipe tomorrow, that would be great - we can advise if lagging might help. It doesn't need to fully surround the pipe. The freezing is probably a borderline occurrence, so anything at all will likely sort it. 

It's too far from any internal waste pipes, on the opposite side of the house from all the plumbing, so I don't think that's a practical solution - I'd been thinking about that too - probably why it was done this way in the first instance.

A common solution, that personally I don't like, is a condensate pump with a flexible pipe/tube running through a loft to some internal waste pipe (or, possibly, a gutter downpipe in which case you have only a very short piece of pipe to insulate)

BooJewels

WIAWSNB said:

Wow - must be cold where you are! Where are you?

Morning.  I don't think it was that cold - maybe -4°C during the day, with icy crispy snow lying since Sunday.  I'm in East Lancashire, nudging the Pennines.

The heating stayed on overnight, set to 16.5°C and modulating on and off at about half hour intervals.  I think we're due a bit of snow this morning, turning to rain and warming during the day into positive numbers.  So the immediate concern should be over, but I clearly need a better arrangement long-term.

BooJewels

grumpy_codger said:

BooJewels said:

WIAWSNB said:

It can also be drained via your internal plastic waste - say kitchen undersink plumbing.

Bear in mind that condensate is slightly acidic, and will damage some surfaces such as masonry and metal - it'll eat through a copper pipe, for instance. 

If you can take a photo of the pipe tomorrow, that would be great - we can advise if lagging might help. It doesn't need to fully surround the pipe. The freezing is probably a borderline occurrence, so anything at all will likely sort it. 

It's too far from any internal waste pipes, on the opposite side of the house from all the plumbing, so I don't think that's a practical solution - I'd been thinking about that too - probably why it was done this way in the first instance.

A common solution, that personally I don't like, is a condensate pump with a flexible pipe/tube running through a loft to some internal waste pipe (or, possibly, a gutter downpipe in which case you have only a very short piece of pipe to insulate)

The pump sounds like a bit of overkill for an occasional problem - it'd be adding a lot of additional yards into the disposal run - the boiler being on the opposite side from waste water plumbing and ground floor of a tall house. 

As it happens, it runs outside adjacent/parallel to the guttering downpipe - but I think that gets blocked with leaves more often than the condensate pipe freezes, so I'm not sure I wouldn't be swapping one problem for a potentially different one.

The very simplest solution is to insulate the 5' of condensate downpipe - so I'll post photos later.

grumpy_codger

BooJewels said:

grumpy_codger said:

BooJewels said:

WIAWSNB said:

It can also be drained via your internal plastic waste - say kitchen undersink plumbing.

Bear in mind that condensate is slightly acidic, and will damage some surfaces such as masonry and metal - it'll eat through a copper pipe, for instance. 

If you can take a photo of the pipe tomorrow, that would be great - we can advise if lagging might help. It doesn't need to fully surround the pipe. The freezing is probably a borderline occurrence, so anything at all will likely sort it. 

It's too far from any internal waste pipes, on the opposite side of the house from all the plumbing, so I don't think that's a practical solution - I'd been thinking about that too - probably why it was done this way in the first instance.

A common solution, that personally I don't like, is a condensate pump with a flexible pipe/tube running through a loft to some internal waste pipe (or, possibly, a gutter downpipe in which case you have only a very short piece of pipe to insulate)

...
The very simplest solution is to insulate the 5' of condensate downpipe - so I'll post photos later.

If you mean using usual (grey) foam pipe insulation, beware that it's for internal use an deteriorates very fast under sunlight.

Eldi_Dos

@BooJewels
 Glad to hear your heating stayed on overnight and hope you can get through the present cold snap without anymore problems with the condensate pipework.

When you get someone into rejig the pipework, they should be able to redo the pipe so that it is sitting proud of the wall and insulation can go all the way round it.If the exsisting pipe stops short of the drain it would be worth getting it altered so that pipe end is in the drain, hopefully this would help reduce wind chill freezing the end of pipe.
Many installations I have seen have the pipe ending short of the drain and I feel that is because installars do not wish to spend time and effort cutting drain cover to suit.

If you where wanting to go belt and braces getting a suitable sized bit of trunking put on after the insulation would help the insulation do its job.

Edit: and would be more cosmetically pleasing.

bjorn_toby_wilde

I have a condensate pump like the one above which has been running happily for nearly 20 years now.  It has a small tank which slowly fills and a float valve which triggers when it’s nearly full. It pumps the condensate about 5m across the loft into the soil pipe.

I would avoid running it into the gutter. That’s exactly where ours ran to before we fitted the pump and gutters freeze too as we found out!

If the pipe is only 5’ then it might be worth considering a trace heating element.  They come as a kit with a thermostat and you apply the wire to the pipe. When the temperature drops below freezing it gently heats the pipe.

WIAWSNB

Avoid pumps if there's an alternative solution

Very good chance that your kettle applications only partially melted the ice, so it didn't take much for it to reblock each time.

As Eldi says, to slightly tweak the downpipe so that insulation can fully wrap around would be better, but fair chance that a near-full wrap will do the job - it may even be that the house will provide some warmth from the wall side. 

Anyhoo, let's see what you have when you can - the next time you take your kettle out!