I'd guess it's a silicone type and not a million miles away from what you'd pay for a similar shaped car one, and includes the clips. It was 22 quid before postage.
Don't really fancy having to do the job twice for the sake of a couple of quid, as I'll have to drain things down to change it, I'd guess. The original has lasted about 7 years.
It's a shaped hose and fits over what looks like 15mm pipe at one end and a brass fitting at the other.
I'm sure it could be bodged if I couldn't get the right spare, but since I can the fan heaters will just get a bashing until it's fixed. ;-)
No. I installed it myself and didn't fancy the idea. Just something else to leak - or not shut off properly when needed years down the line.
I can drain down very easily. One of those combination lockshield valves on a rad close to an outside door. Just stick a length of hose on and poke into the nearby drain. And it would be no bad thing to use new inhibitor.
I've yet to find a drain c*ck that doesn't leak around the shaft when opened enough to let the ystem drian in less than a day... They tend not to have any gland and those that do aren't very good. If I was installing a system with a single drain down point it would be plumbed outside and have a ball valve inside, possibly lever and lockable. Not sure what I'd do to stop wildlife making home in the "dead" section of pipe.
A very good thing if you aren't putting the old primary water back in. B-)
In this current house, the main drain point by the boiler is some big f*ck off lever valve - it's teed off the main heating pipe from the boiler which is something like 40mm (probably dates back to the 1970's). That drains nicely, though it does leak a little - but high enough up to put a decent sized container under - when opended and needs whacking with a hammer to open it.
when I redid the system in the old house there was an access hatch in the hallway into the subfloor space. I teed off the 22mm pipe and put in a 22mm ball valve. Attached a bit of hose long enough to run out the front door.
Yes - this one dribbles when open. So just use an old towel to catch it. The original was located in the cellar where a dribble wouldn't matter, but is nothing like as convenient to use, which is why I added this one. It doesn't leak when closed.
It would actually be quite difficult to do here. Not impossible - but a lot of work given how infrequently it would be used.
When I had a new boiler fitted the installer did the same, and used that rather than the drain in the cellar.
Same here. But I still use the cellar valve and drain into a 40L flexi tub. I think I needed to decant a few litres to avoid overflow last time I did it.
Two reasons. One, it's the lowest point, so a reasonably full emptying of the system. And two, reassuring or otherwise inspection of what actually comes out.
Mums house was originally a coal fired gravity system (so large bore pipework) and was converted to a wall mounted balanced flue pumped system some years later. Somewhere along the line the drain tap that just poked out though the air vent that ran under the complete width of the house back door was removed and noting put in place as a low level replacement. Therefore the lowest you could drain the system was the boiler. ;-(
So, I cut a floorboard by the front door and drilled and tapped one of the large brass T joints and bonded a std 1/2" drain-c*ck in there. A hose only has to go from there a couple of meters to reach a drain.
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We used it quite a lot when some plumbing work in the bathroom dislodged a bit of timescale and partially blocked the boiler and when servicing all the rad valves. They don't make em like this any more.
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Now Mum has some bloke fit a laminated floor in the hall and in spite of explaining that there was need to access the drain under the floor, didn't bother fitting a hatch because it was 'too difficult'.
It won't be as difficult as getting access to the drain in a hurry in the future (well, it would be if not for my multisaw). ;-)
Mine (a WB1A installed in 2008) did the same last summer. When I removed t he hose I found it was full of crunchy black debris. I'm still not sure wh ere this came from - it was almost like the inside of the hose had degraded somehow. Google did find a couple of references to "crunchy hose syndrome " on Worcester-Bosch boilers.
Anyway, I chose to replace both hoses (there's one for the heat exchanger i nlet, and one for the outlet) to save me potentially having to do the other one shortly after...
As regards the boiler repair, I only need to drain down to below that. And the one on the rad is well below it. I've still got the cellar one for a total drain down if needed. Carrying several buckets of water out of the cellar when that was the only drain point was a PITA. If I do need to drain down totally, using the convenient one first leaves only a small amount from the cellar one.
Interesting. I'm assuming they are silicone hoses and should have a pretty long life. My BMW E39 has these, and they're all original. Car is 1997. And they do a pretty similar job.
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