Plumbing

[smoothsteve]

Earlier this year I noticed that I was losing water from my expansion tank and can smell steam in the loft so I guess its boiling off water but do not know why?
I have an Ideal Concorde WRS 255a wall boiler fitted by myself back in 1882 and it has been pretty well perfect all this time.
My boiler setting is now on 1, the lowest. I have however replaced the pump before this problem started but surely it can't be the pump? Or do I have a leak under the floor?
Any reply's will be appreciated.
Regards
Steve

 

[JohnKay]

Hi smoothsteve

A bit more info would be handy. When you say loosing water, is there an overflow, or is the tank being topped up all the time?
What type of system is this - fully pumped with one or two motorised valves, or gravity hot water with pumped heating ?
Has there been any other symptoms, odd noises perhaps?

Difficult to comment too much without knowing more, but if the boiler thermostat is OK the water can only reach the set temp. Depending on pipework configuration, the pump may be set too high, or there may be a blockage in the pipework at the point the cold feed enters.

 

[petej]

Earlier this year I noticed that I was losing water from my expansion tank and can smell steam in the loft so I guess its boiling off water but do not know why?
I have an Ideal Concorde WRS 255a wall boiler fitted by myself back in 1882 and it has been pretty well perfect all this time.
My boiler setting is now on 1, the lowest. I have however replaced the pump before this problem started but surely it can't be the pump? Or do I have a leak under the floor?
Any reply's will be appreciated.
Regards
Steve

Most common cause is that the due to bad system design, a restriction or both. Your pump is pumping over filling the expansion tank with hot water.This will obviously only happen when the system is running.
If this is what is happening it is bad for your system as when the water splashes into the tank it picks up oxygen which will cause rapid corrosion of your radiators.
Slow pump down a speed, extent the expansion pipe higher or look for a blockage/problem around where the expansion and cold feed pipes enter the system.

It could also be - if your calorifier (coil) has gone in your hot water cylinder and the cold water storage tank is fitted higher than your central heating expansion tank,though less common.

With pumping over you will be able to see the water coming from expansion pipe and splashing into the tank, with the calorifier you wont see it but the level will rise above the overflow.