New World fire / back boiler - Where's the pump?

[John Rumm]

Got a call from a friend the other day saying could you look at the mother in law's central heating, the rads are not getting hot.

Anyway it turns out to be ancient New World gas fire / back boiler type affair. From the description of the fault it initially sounded as if the pump might be at fault, since the gravity circulated hot water was fine I was told[1]. However, I could not actually find the pump! Looked in all the normal places. Do these fires / boilers have a integral pump system boiler style, or had the installer been really creative with its location?

[1] The reality was somewhat different - in fact the main burner was not lighting at all, and there were no volts getting to to the main gas valve.

The hot water was "working" since there was a tank full of it! The pump was also working in that you could hear water flow and feel vibration from it when the stat was calling for heat.

The fault turned out to be a loose mains inlet plug - the connector for which was mounted on the end of a bit of flat wiring cable by the look of it, and it had simply sprung out of its socket due to the stiffness of the wire. Returning it to the socket restored normal operation.

[Owain]

Under the floorboards near the fireplace seems a favourite round here. Requires taking out the fitted bookcases and lifting the lounge carpet.

You may need to go a-hunting with a stethoscope

Owain

[EricP]

A pump can be fitted anywhere. If you are lucky there is a purpose built channel with all the crap in to one side of the chimney breast, covered with a plywood cover. If not it can be a matter of turning the boiler off so it does not come on and turning the thermostat up so the pump runs. You then creep around *listening*.

I stuffed one in with the boiler, one in the side of the chimney breast and one under the landing floor outside the airing cupboard door in installs over the years.

[John Rumm]

That thought did occur to me (the flow and return for the rads appears about a foot off the floor on the side of the chimney and then go straight down into the floor. It was also close to where I could feel some vibration and hear the pump noise. I just seemed like a PITA place to put it! (still probably better than in the fireplace with the boiler

- since you would have to dismantle half the fire/boiler to get at it.

Luckily the old engineering adage of "it works better when plugged in" fixed it on this occasion. Someone else can do it if the pump does turn its toes up ;-)