Ideal boiler loosing pressure (AT WITS END)
Hi all looking to converse about my boiler problem with people with knowledge. I’d be grateful for advice.
System
Area 1 downstairs front of house (6 Rads)(traditional suspended wooden floor)
Area 2 downstairs back of house (6 Rads)(underground mainly in concrete)
Area 3 upstairs (12 rads)(all under floorboards)
Puts pressure to 2 Bar and with Boiler off (didn’t think of that) monitors the pressure and over the next hour the pressure drops to around 1.75 Bar. He says I have a leak somewhere in the system.****
Continue to monitor, and pressure drops slowly over the next few days.
Nick
Hi all looking to converse about my boiler problem with people with knowledge. I’d be grateful for advice.
System
- Ideal Vogue S32 System Boiler
- Everflow Stainless unvented hot water cylinder (EN 300 P5)(300 liters)
- Drayton Mitime T740R timer/controller With 3x two port Auto valves giving 3 zones.
- Zone 1 Hot water, Zone 2 C/H upstairs, Zone 3 C/H downstairs
Area 1 downstairs front of house (6 Rads)(traditional suspended wooden floor)
Area 2 downstairs back of house (6 Rads)(underground mainly in concrete)
Area 3 upstairs (12 rads)(all under floorboards)
- The system is quite large bur running within the manufactures capacity guide lines
- Checked pressure release valve, no sign of discharge.
- Checked expansion vessel, a little low, no water, so repressured to .75 Bar, seams OK
- Called Ideal (10 years part & labor warranty) suspecting needing new heat exchange unit. (I hope)
Puts pressure to 2 Bar and with Boiler off (didn’t think of that) monitors the pressure and over the next hour the pressure drops to around 1.75 Bar. He says I have a leak somewhere in the system.****
- So I embark on an investigation of an elimination program to find the leak.
- Isolate downstairs front of house. (if there is a leak I hope and pray its in this area).
Continue to monitor, and pressure drops slowly over the next few days.
- I repressurize the system, but this time I check that the system is completely full, bleeding all rads Etc. and still with just the front of house isolated I wait and hope.
- 13th January – I isolate upstairs (both downstairs areas on + Hot water) & repressurize to 1Bar
- Next morning no pressure again, BUT when I try to repressurize I can physically see the pressure dropping fast. The pressure eventually stabilizes. ( maybe because most of the C/H system is upstairs (over 2 floors) and when in circuit it was giving some kind of pressure stability?)
- 14th January PM. I isolate upstairs & downstairs back of house, the pressure indicates 1.5 Bar, which is ok for boiler going off for the night. In the morning again no pressure ( were is the water going???)
- 15th January AM. I isolate all areas, turn off C/H but keep hot water on, again I can’t manage to stabilize the pressure, it is going down at the same speed as I am pressurizing the system. (maybe there is a fracture inside the hot water cylinder coils??).
- I disconnected Condensate and diverted into a bucket to measure. It produces about 1 ltr per day – is this normal or excessive?
- To double check I again isolated the back of house and upstairs for the whole day – the pressure still drops in the evening when there is no demand.
- Sorry this is a lot of information – I hope someone out there will know what to do – I’d be most grateful for your expert advice and ideas.
Nick