Being driven mad by Ideal Logic Combi 30 water pressure drop

[Peter Hearn]

My 90-year old, disabled Mum had a new Logic Combi 30 boiler fitted by Home Front just over 4 years ago. Over the past six months the water pressure had dropped (shows F1 fault on panel, so boiler doesn't operate)on several occasions and I have had to re-pressure it back to 1 to 1.5Bar.

There is no regular pattern to the drop, it can last one day before it drops again, or two day, or two weeks or even a month. British Gas have been out on three occasions and cannot find any physical defect. There is no evidence of water loss through the expansion pipe. Have had various floorboards up to see if there is a pipework leak, but without taking every board up, cannot be 100% sure.

If there were a leak somewhere, then surely the drop would be a regular one? Have seen some bad items on the net about this and previous ideal combi boilers, re spilts in heat exchange. Also one thing I have and Mum have noticed, is a lot water vapour from the flu - could this be water that has leaked and its being evapourated when it's fired up?

I'm tearing my hair out and Mum is getting depressed about it all.
Any suggestions out there?
Thanks, Peter

 

[village idiot]

Hello Peter, tell mum to have a strong drink and relax. If BG can't find the source, what chance have you got?
OK, when next you visit mum, make an effort to spend the day there. Before you got to bed, check boiler pressure is say around 1.2-1.5 bar, then turn off the two isolating valves on the Flow and Return pipes. If in the morning the pressure has dropped, then the leak is within the boiler (say split HE). If pressure is same, then leak somewhere within pipework/radiators etc. Good luck

 

[dancinplumba]

Does pressure loss coincide with usage ? ie heating on ? May only leak when its hot through expansion

 

[townfanjon]

Peter, I have just had a very similar problem on my daughters ideal boiler , sorry I can't tell you what the problem was, but please ring ideal and tell them the symptoms, I am sure you are still under warranty they will probably come and sort it for your mum.

 

[stevetheplumber]

if the heat exchanger is cracked you would have water running down the condense all the time

 

[Sparkgap]

if the heat exchanger is cracked you would have water running down the condense all the time

Not necessarily. Depending on the pressure, if there's a crack in the HE it could be okay when the boiler's off but when running thermal expansion causes it to open slightly and lose water, probably wouldn't notice as slight leak would evaporate but you'd lose pressure.

 

[IDCHAPPY]

Call ideal, best way to find out where the problem is would be to close the isolation valves on the boiler, if the pressure still drops the boiler is the issue. If it is solid then sinks like the titanic when you open it up to the system then that's likely the problem.

 

[Peter Hearn]

Call ideal, best way to find out where the problem is would be to close the isolation valves on the boiler, if the pressure still drops the boiler is the issue. If it is solid then sinks like the titanic when you open it up to the system then that's likely the problem.

Thanks to you and also thanks to the others who have repliedas well.
The pressure drops between when the heating goes off (around11:00 pm) and when it is due to come comes on the next morning (06:30 am). It’salso set to come on and go off twice throughout the day, as Mum always feelsthe cold. However, there is no setpattern to the overnight drop, it’s not consistently every night.
I have been round during the day on a few occasions and thepressure when off and when operating is fine. I have been there at 06:30 on a few mornings and the pressure is around1.5 Bar and it fires up. It workedsolidly for 14 days over the Christmas period, then suddenly one morning, nopressure.
Is my logic correct in thinking that if there was a leak inthe pipework which I cannot see e.g. under the floorboards (I have checked thesurface pipework and radiators valves), then surely that leaked does not comeand go, it’s always there, so the pressure would drop on a regular basis –which it isn’t.
I have contacted Ideal about getting an engineering to comeand thoroughly check the boiler and it’s parts, so I think that is my favouriteoption. I’m going to put a plastic bagover the pressure relief pipe that comes out of the boiler to see if any waterfrom there and also look at the plastic condenser pipe to see if water iscoming from there as well.

 

[IDCHAPPY]

Keep us posted buddy 🙂