Servowarm Elite 50 boiler - lost water pressure

[Mike Clarke]

My daughter has just moved into a house with an old Servowarm Elite 50 boil er. Ater attempting to bleed a radiator which was almost empty we seem to h ave lost all water pressure in the central heating circuit and I can't see any means of refilling it. There's no visible filling loop and I don't see anywhere where one can be attached. There doesent even seem to be any press ure guage.

Does anyone have any advice on how to get the boiler up and running again a nd getting me out of the dog house for having offered to bleed the radiator .

[YAPH]

What makes you think it's a sealed system? Servowarms are pretty ancient: I'd guess you have a vented system. I'd look for and check the feed & expansion tank[1] - my guess is either the float valve is stuck up in the closed position and the tank is dry, or the tank has water in it but the feed pipe into the heating system is blocked solid with scale so there's no water getting through to top up the system.

[1] or you have a Primatic type system in which case I'd run, not walk away from the job, very quickly ;-)

[Mike Clarke]

I'm away from home at the moment and having to use Google groups :-< instead of my usual newsreader so apologies in advance for possible messy quoting etc.

Servowarms are pretty ancient: I'd guess you have a vented system.

It was late at night after a hectic day moving in and my brain wasn't properly in gear so I was thinking in terms of what I'm accustomed to. From what I remember of the layout it probably is vented.

away from the job, very quickly ;-)

I'm going back there later today when I can check but I have a nasty suspicion that it is a Primatic. There's no internet access in that house yet so any suggestions before I go on how to refill it would be very much appreciated.

[YAPH]

Had the house been vacant for a while before you dau moved in? Possibly water supplies would have been turned off. However I think a primatic should just refill itself when you supply water to it (from the storage tank), and you wouldn't get anything out of the hot water taps if it were empty so you'd be able to tell if it were that.

(There is a horrible design of combined tank in a rectangular box that I saw recently that was basically a primatic. Like other rectangular combination tanks a part of the cuboid shape - a top corner cuboid - was the storage tank with a float-operated fill valve, and the rest of the space was hot water storage.)

[Mike Clarke]

Fortunately it turned out that it isn't a Primatic.

Hunting around in the loft revealed a header tank. The cause of the problem was that it had never been provided with any form of water supply :-( Just a single outlet pipe supplying the heating pipework, After several tedious visit to the loft with a large jug of water I got the tank half full and the heating system is in operation again.

[Vir Campestris]

Next time - can't you syphon out of the main tank?

Andy

[Mike Clarke]

That's an idea that hadn't occurred to me though on the day after moving in I don't think it would have been easy to find a suitable length of tube in the house. But it's certainly worth remembering for the future.