brittony 80 boiler

[florrie]

I have a Brittony 80 boiler which is causing endless problems, I have a service contract with Npower and they have been out to it 3 times in the last 10 days and don't seem to be able to fix the problem. They say that the boiler is fine and the problem is that the water is not circulating (new pump has been fitted) the boiler ignites, but only runs for 58 seconds then there is a loud banging noise and it then cuts out, after two mins relights and goes through the same thing over and over again, which means the rads never heat up. Could anyone give me some advice on how to fix the problem. One of the engineers said it could be a blockage somewhere in the system, if it is how would i unblock it???

Florrie

 

[petej]

It does sound like there is not enough water circulating through the boiler heat exchanger causing it to overheat (the banging sound) then for it to cut off on the stat.
The obvious first check is the pump. Was the same thing happening before the pump was changed ? If it was and the new pump is not faulty it does sound like dirt in the system which often ends up in the heat exchanger (combi boilers = small waterways).
If the boiler is covered on the contract but not the system I would disconnect the flow and return pipes under the boiler and connect to them 2 hose pipes, one connected to the mains and one to a drain and flush the system one rad at a time then swap over the hoses and repeat flushing backwards. (it is surprising how much dirt can come out)
If there is a good flow through the system afterwards the fault must be in the boiler so get them back.

Good luck
Pete

 

[florrie]

Thanks for the information, yes the same noise was happening before the pump was changed, and the boiler cut out after running for 58 seconds then after three mins started up again. The whole system is covered by Npower, but there are exclusions, one being lime scale in the system and the other being sludge, so assume that the problem is caused by one or the other. He did manage to get the system going at one point but the radiators downstairs would not heat up, he said the radiators needed to be balanced and told me how to do it, funny but I would have thought that it would have been his job, but it would appear not, managed to sort out the radiators, but the next morning the problems began again when none of them would heat up, all I need to do now is figure out how to attach the hoses to the pipes and give it a go. Thanks once again for your help.

Florrie

 

[petej]

If there are any handy compression joints on the flow and return below the boiler they can be undone and connected to with a couple of 22mm compression elbow with a 15mm reducer in one end to enable a hose pipe to be jubilee clipped to a bit off 15mm pipe fitted to the reducer.

There should be three 22mm pipes connected to your boiler and three 15mm ones.
Of the 3 22mm pipes the middle one is the gas pipe the left one is the flow to the radiator and the right pipe is the radiator return.

Good luck.