Recently our Thorn Apollo copper boiler (30/50) - 23 years old - ha
started making noises. The best I can describe is to say sounds lik 'fluttering' just short of the banging which I know as 'kettling.' This builds up from none to noisy enough to be heard in other room than where it is located in the kitchen. In the early days we ha banging and adding Fernox solved it - but over the years has probabl become very dilute.
As we are covered by West Midlands Gas maintenance contract - I aske them to visit. The Gas Fitter/engineer said that it was due to a buil up of solids on the heat exchanger and that it would need to b replaced. For this to happen the system would have to be drained dow and on filling 500 ml of Fernox boiler noise silencer added, at th time it sounded logical. He said this is not covered under the contrac and that I would have to pay. He left me a quote of £564.83 - this seem an awful lot of money. This does not include a system flush - an radiators are uniformly hot anyway.
If this work is considered necessary I aim to get a quote from a independent Central Heating company - though expect I will have to pa for them to come out and assess the situation anyway.
However since I made the call for the visit the noise has been gettin less and was not at its worst when the engineer called. For the last days there has been absolutely no unusual sound whatsoever. This lead me to think that his diagnosis may be incorrect.
I would be grateful for any views, suggestions.
Conra
-- Conrad