bunn | Entries tagged with boiler

Well, I hope he will, anyway. We have an F75 error and the boiler will not boot up, which means no central heating! It did the same thing yesterday, but that was too high pressure, and I was able to get it to start by bleeding the radiators. But now although the pressure is only at 2.1, no heat :-(

It's moderately cold, by Cornish standards (around 2 degrees C in the day time and maybe 2 below at night) so hurray for the gas fire and electric shower to keep us moderately warm until the boilerman come. I remembered the existence of the immersion heater, having checked my previous boiler posts (I knew this journal had a practical value) and have just turned it on. With luck this is a minimal level of competence which will avert the Sarcasm of the Boilerman.

We'd probably be comfortably warm if we had got round to getting the back doors properly sealed (draughty!) and if it wasn't windy enough that the catflap keeps flapping, bringing an added chill to the utility room. I like the new curtains that I bought for the back doors, but I bought them in the summer, forgetting that winter-weight curtains with draught-excluding properties are a boon. Hey ho.

In theory, we get to buy the new house on Monday. However, the seller of the house that our sellers are moving to has apparently had a tantrum and cancelled her removal company, so who knows. *holds up hands in bafflement as a statement of surrender to the elements*

Yes, the boiler has died again! As usual, I am glad we have a gas fire and an electrically heated shower. I have sent an email to Artifice Plumbing, the nom de guerre of our current Boiler Man, and live in hope.

It's actually surprisingly warm for March, with primroses and daffodils everywhere, gardens full of flowering magnolias and camellias, the hedges full of flowering blackthorn and even the odd bluebell showing. Probably a good thing, considering the whole boiler thing.

Current Mood: chilly

The warranty on our latest central heating boiler - a Vaillant - ran out on 19th Jan, so obviously the boiler - erratic throughout its 5-year history - has now decided that It is All Too Much and has given up the ghost, with an error F76. Rosie Roo woke me at 6am to complain that she was cold and Brythen refuses to let her get in bed with him. Now she is suffering an existential crisis, because she wants to be on her sofa, but she also wants to be in front of the gas fire, so she keeps trotting from one to the other. I am NOT moving her sofa in front of the fire...

( more boring stuff about boilers )

ETA: the boiler is fixed! Tried an exciting new plumber, a Cornish one rather than a Devon one, name of Artifice Plumbing. He came within 2 hours, twiddled the pump to release an air bubble, and it is working again. Hurray! this weekend's task: bleed all the radiators... :-(

It has an error that the plumber says means it needs a part. Sodding thing was only serviced on Wednesday!

Philmophlegm has a theory that our boiler goes wrong so often because LPG gas is somehow not as good as mains gas. I think probably all boilers are just annoying and temperamental. :-(

ETA on Monday. On Saturday, it was an error that suggested it needed a part (apparently) so absolutely no point coming out, hence 2 days without heating. Today, Monday, it is an error that can be fixed by drying the electrical areas of the machine with a hair dryer. Hmmmmmmmm. I think we may need a plumber with a proper weekend service. :-/

Bad things. ( Read more... )Good things( Read more... )

It is a stupidly cold spring - freezing winds which somehow do not manage to freeze the endless mud - and our two-year-old boiler has just died. Woeisme! At least we have escaped the snow. Feels like it has been winter since approximately last June.

This morning the Gas went off. This was well timed, as it is so much warmer now, but still a cause of woe. Neither the boiler nor the gas fire was working.

I went and prodded the tank, which told me it was 15% full. I thought this dubious given that it was last filled in October, so I rang Calor and asked them if the gauge might be off. They said that Telemetrics had told them the tank was 14% full, and passed me to Emergency.

I was very impressed. Emergency told me to find the Regulator Spindle and twiddle it. Unfortunately our tank is rather venerable, so their description of where the Spindle might be hiding did not match our equipment. They sent an engineer instead, who turned up, to my amazement, within three hours, and twiddled our spindle for us. For free! I was even more impressed when he got the gas flowing again. The fire and boiler both had hiccups to start with, but seem to have resumed operations now we have turned them on and off again a bit.

He has promised to send a new Regulator, as ours is apparently over 20 years old (I would have guessed at least 30, myself...). Calor may not be a cheap way to heat a house (we've just gone up to payments of £125 a month! Woe!), but they certainly seem to do a good job for the money. I can definitely see why people are putting wood fires back into their houses though.

Current Mood: cold

( dog is broken. again! )

In other news, the dratted BRAND NEW Vaillant boiler has developed a problem and is leaking and not working. The installer came today and could not fix, tomorrow comes the man from Vaillant under the warranty. I think our entire heating system is under a Curse. Thank goodness for the gas fire.

*our practice has several vets. Some I don't know well enough to have classified, but I have classified Rude Craig as useful but irritating, and Useless Martin as irritating and, yes, useless.

Current Mood: cold

Our dratted Keston boiler has once again been driving us up the wall. It hasn't actually failed (yet...), but from time to time it turns itself off and has to be cajoled into re-starting, usually when you've just run a bath that was disappointingly colder than expected. It can be only a matter of time before it refuses to restart at all.

Rather than pay another few hundred quid for yet another repair/part, I've just bitten the bullet and booked a new boiler installation for 19th Jan. (Irritatingly, and with no excuse, I'd forgotten the VAT change. Should have had it done last year. Hey ho.)

This will be a Vaillant, which is what Boiler Man David recommended, and with a bit of luck will be more reliable, easier to get serviced, and possibly even more powerful . He is from the same firm that installed our LPG gas fire (which is lovely, and has 'just worked' brilliantly ever since) so I hope will do a good job.

Current Mood: annoyed yet resigned

( Read more only if you are interested in the endless gurglings of my hounds )

( Oh yes, the boiler. )

And my car alarm has just gone off, apparently to warn me that it has started to rain. And when I came back into the room from turning that off, I found Yama Bungle sitting on my keyboard having typed a number of things that were no doubt exciting, but probably not stuff I want to post. Get your own blog, Yama!

Current Mood: twisted pants

The gas engineer came with pleasing promptitude, but has gone away again saying he thinks it is the fan, and a new one will have to be ordered. :-(

I wonder how long we will have no hot water...

Current Mood: brrrr

Our dratted boiler has decided once again that winter is the ideal season for it to take a few days off and take things easy. Thankfully we have a calor fire and an electric shower till it gets fixed. Did I mention my top boiler-related tip: do not buy a Keston boiler...?

( on the subject of the shower )

Current Mood: chilly

The dratted boiler is playing up again. Once more we are without heat or hot water because the temperamental machine has decided that actually heating water is a difficult and complex task that it really cannot face just at the moment, when it's feeling so emotionally unstable...

Boiler engineers are on their way this afternoon, so that is one piece of good news. I bet they will as usual demand half the kingdom and the hand of the princess in return for fixing the damn thing though.

It was August last time this happened. The boiler is still not yet 3 years old!

If you are buying a boiler, avoid Keston, would be my advice.

Update: boiler man has been, boiler now working again. The gas tap was stuck closed. He doesn't know why. He has unstuck it. He blamed Calor and said LPG was too sticky and changed too much in formulation between tanks.

Bollocks to that: I've lived with LPG since I was 12, on and off, and I've never seen this before. I reckon that the LPG version of the Keston boiler is not well adapted to LPG, that's what I reckon.

Current Mood: enraged

Our Keston boiler, 2 years old in September, has once again decided that it doesn't want to fire up. For a 2 year old, it has not had a happy life so far.

It first decided it wasn't going to fire up last winter, while still under warranty. They came and fixed it. Then this spring the drain that takes away the condensate backed up, something inside got rusty, and it started dribbling water everywhere.

We got someone to come and fix that, but he didn't have the proper part to replace the rusted one, so he rigged something up. Which worked fine, until he came again to fit the proper part last week, after which it decided it was going to stop firing up altogether. And the condensate pipe, which the guy was supposed to be replacing at the same time, still isn't the proper one so it's probably still backing up and making the new part, whatever it is, rusty. Or it would be if the damn thing was actually working at all...

I think the moral of this story is, if you buy a new and expensive boiler, it is worth buying the extended warranty thing as well, and get it installed by the manufacturers recommended agent. Or just buy a cheap boiler and wait slightly longer for baths. Also, that it is a fine thing to own an electric shower.

The reason for putting this somewhat dull tale of woe here is that I can't remember the exact details of what went wrong and how and when. If I'd noted it here as it happened, I would know this stuff and be better equipped to make sure the local Keston agent, when I manage to get hold of him, knows all the details.