Had the boilerman in today

[Tim Streater]

Quite a lot of soot he vacuumed out. Then I said there was a "noise" when it starts up from cold, a regular tapping. Initially he thought it was pipework expanding but when he put everything back together and started it up, and it fired up, you could hear it "hunting" and there was the tapping. So he changed the nozzle and all is well again.

What with the soot I'm now more inclined to accept that having him come twice a year is worth it. He seems a good bloke and we always have a chat about this and that. He says that they are obliged in all cases to install condensing these days, didn't make sense in one case he mentioned where that involved the plumber having to put in a pump to pump the condensate up a flight and a half so it could go outside. And of course, this time of year, good chance it freezes.

[geoff]

In message , Tim Streater writes

Soot = incomplete combustion

Hunting cured by tapping

is it a potterton profile ?

[Tim Streater]

He seemed to think the amount was normal.

No, hunting cured by changing the nozzle. The tapping was a side-effect of the hunting, I suppose.

No, Euroflame. I omitted to mention its oil.

[zaax]

Condensate should go in the sewer.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Tim Streater saying something like:

What sort of service was it that he didn't change the nozzle as a matter of course? Did he bother using a flue gas analyser at all? Did he even have one?

[Triffid]

Which is fair enough if you can access the sewer from the location of the boiler. My condensing boiler is located on the outer wall of my attached garage. There is no drain inside the garage, and no easily accessible drain immediately outside the garage. The drain goes through the garage wall about

1 foot above the level of the side path. The pipe runs underneath the side path and into a soak-away located between the edge of the concrete side path and the fence. The external piping is well lagged and there was no problem last winter - but this winter it did freeze up during that prolonged very cold spell - and shut down the boiler. A few kettles of hot water got it running again - and I covered everything over with plastic bin liners filled with old sheets and towels until the temperature rose again.

I was hoping, when the boiler was installed, to cut through the garage floor and locate the soak-away immediately beneath the boiler. Not allowed under building regs however...

[Tim Watts]

zaax ( [e-mail]) wibbled on Thursday 03 March 2011 00:11:

It can go into a soakawy filled with an acid neutralising material, eg lime chips.

[Tim Streater]

What, at ?20 a pop? No thanks.

[Tim Streater]

It would still have had to go *up*, as I understand it, to reach the sewer.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Tim Streater saying something like:

A fiver retail, in my local supplier.

It's not compulsory, but to bring the boiler up to its max efficiency it's best to have one. If he's doing boiler services regularly, he should have one. A good 10% efficiency can be gained over best 'eyeball' settings by using one. That translates into you using less oil over the year.

[Tim Streater]

Mmm, so I see. I should lay in a couple, then. I see the advice generally is to change them annually.

Next time he gets in touch I'll ask him to do that.

[cynic]

=A320 for a nozzle? You are having your leg lifted.

[Dave Liquorice]

We burn about 4000l of oil a year. The only deposit in the boiler is half a mug full of sulphur deposits, no black soot at all.

Or check the oil pressure or measure the smoke number? hunting doesn't sound like a good sign to me.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Liquorice" saying something like:

Exactly so. All that should have been done as a matter of course, not just an eyeball and 'that'll do'.

[SS]

Mine to inside garage, in the really cold spell I just pulled the condensate pipe and let it drip into a container in the garage. When the weather improved I reconnected.