Leaking Boiler

Do you have a leaking boiler?

Assuming you have a boiler that you may think is leaking, but cannot see any type of leak, what do you do?

First we have to establish what type of boiler you have, is it a mix boiler, system boiler or heat only boiler.

With combination and system boilers they work under ruthless, with heat only boilers they are sometimes are pressurised, or work under low pressure.

With all boilers that are pressurised you will have a pressure gauge suited to either the front of the boiler or close by on the pipe work.

A leaking boiler is not always a leaking boiler, I know that may sound strange, but it's true. All these boilers working under high pressure should have an expansion vessel fitted either internally or externally, this is normally the reason for a leaking boiler.

So how do we resolve the leaking boiler problem?

First you ought to have your boiler serviced each and every year without fail, in the event that you decide not to have your boiler serviced then at sometime in the foreseeable future you will have an expensive repair bill and even the cost of a fresh boiler.

So why is it important to have your boiler serviced?

The times of not bothering to service your boiler have long gone, these boilers were very basic rather than much went wrong using them, the most common problem was that the thermal coupling had to be changed. These boilers weren't very efficient around 40% of your fuel bill went out of the flue and the other 60% into you're heating system.

Because the introduction of the high efficiency condensing boilers it's been very important to have them serviced every year. These boilers are designed to give the best performance and most of most save you on your own energy bill.

Whenever a boiler service is completed we have been looking first to make sure everything is still safe, that there are no combustion or gas leaks, checking on the flue making sure the merchandise of combustion are exiting to the outside as they should.

Middlesbrough Boiler installation  take a combustion reading with a combustion analyser and be sure the boiler when running is at the boiler makers parameters, if the reading aren't correct then we perform further investigation to find out why, then reset.

Next we arrived at the most frequent problem with one of these boilers.

The expansion vessel, The expansion vessel is really a very important section of your boiler and heating system, if this is not working properly you then will have problems. The most common problem could be the loss of system pressure, a lot of people describe this as a leaking boiler.

In fact it isn't a leaking boiler, it's an expansion vessel problem. The vessel should be checked each year and reset for your boiler to give its best performance, once the vessel it not checked, over time it will stop working.

The Boiler Service

When you contact your local gas safe registered boiler service engineer to service your boiler, ask him to be sure the expansion vessel is checked over and reset if needed. For reasons uknown whenever a boiler service is completed, the expansion vessel is apparently left out and not checked, not all of the time but around 80% of the time. When you browse the boiler makers instructions on boiler service they state that the expansion ought to be checked and reset if needed.

Just what exactly happens to the expansion vessel?

The simplest way to describe the expansion vessel is, its just like a car tyre, over time it is going to go flat. The vessel is the same, it is pumped up with an automobile pump to a Pressure that's compatible to the type of heat you have.

If the vessel loses its pressure then it'll begin to fill with water internally, once this starts to occur most people start to think they could have a leaking boiler.

The expansion vessel functions by taking up the expansion of the water since it heats up within you're heat. If the vessel does not have any internal pressure then it will fill up with water, once full, your boiler will start to discharge water through the pressure relief valve, to release the pressure to avoid pipes bursting.