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Riley

Plumbers Arms member
Plumber
Gas Engineer
Subscribed
Jan 14, 2013
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Sarf Coast
Afternoon chaps

ive spent the last few hours trying to trace a gas leak at a property.

Traced it it back to boiler but cannot find anything at fault with sniffer etc. Have nipped up all joints leading to boiler and inside. It's after the gas valve on the pipework but as its a room sealed unit it must be before the combustion chamber as the smell is noticeable in the room. It's a Worcester Greenstar he plus if anyone knows any traits with these????

any help welcome as I'm losing my rag with it
 
have a coffee. turn on the gas and work from the gas valve onwards, it will be there. Ipresume the tightness test is fine to the gas valve, been caught out before with 2 leaks 🙂
 
Absolutely fine up to the butterfly iso valve it has that silly little plastic cap inside the combustion chamber that leads back to the gas valve. Never know if that should be a tight fit or not
 
Can you stick your sniffer in the flue.
Turn the gas valve off.
Give it 20 mins test.
Turn gas valve on.
Give it 20 mins.
Compare
 
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Can you stick your sniffer in the flue.
Turn the gas valve off.
Give it 20 mins test.
Turn gas valve on.
Give it 20 mins.
Compare

was about to suggest that, I had a old cdi earlier this year with similar symptoms . new gas valve cured it
 
I could potentially cap It. As I say the only thing I can't work out it is even if the gas valve is passing how can we smell it inside any gas passing should be going up into the combustion chamber which should be sealed
 
I could potentially cap It. As I say the only thing I can't work out it is even if the gas valve is passing how can we smell it inside any gas passing should be going up into the combustion chamber which should be sealed

through the air intake bet you
 
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If it's the one with the rubber tube between gas valve and fan this can go porous or crack. Had a couple with it.
 
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Seems strange that as you say you can smell in room from RS boiler you'd assume that any internal leak would disperse through flue or air intake.
I found intermittent leak on new WB compact CDi turned out no olive on gas pipework in to boiler just paste, also had leak once on some pipework not showing on drop test but only leaked when boiler running.
 
I have had a gas leak before on a compression fitting on the connection to the boiler. It only leaked when the boiler was running, so it would always pass every test. Yet when the boiler was running it would cause this joint to leak for some reason.
First thing would be to do a mini tightness test to see if the gas valve is letting by.
 
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Which poses a question, if you have a gas valve letting by and no smell of gas and within allowance Mb drop can you let it go?
As I had this the other day on BR Avanta plus
The landlord opted to have it changed but was not sure if it would have been ok letting by 0.5 mb over 2 mins no smell of gas
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well obviously not as you've traced where the escape is, you need to repair it
 

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