Hi all, hopefully someone can advise, My friend had a Vaillant boiler fitted around seven years ago which works very well apart from when its first used when Autumn arrives and the heating is needed, he does have the water on constant throughout the year though, he has had to call someone out in the past, they would bleed the system and off it goes for the winter, other times it would work ok after throwing a tantrum and not working for a while (as far as we can remember it has always had a gurgling/trapped air noise in the pipes above the boiler) recently it stopped working so he called someone out, they bled it, all seemed fine and then it stopped working again two weeks later so he called someone out again, they bled it and its working fine but whoever came out said he thought it may be sucking in air from the pipe that sits in the tank in the loft and advised he should have some auto bleeders fitted, which consists of having the system drained before fitment, now my friend is a bit of a hoarder and his loft is rammed to the gunnels, i've seen it and would probably take a week to empty it for them to gain access to the tank which luckily is right at the back! all he wants to know is can anyone see any problems if he just carries on bleeding it (now he knows where the bleed points are) when needed rather than going all through the hassle of emptying the loft etc? i have looked online but can't really find any information regarding long term manual bleeding, Thanks.
Well over here we do not have a tank in the attic. But normally air inside the system is trapped at the highest point, be it a radiator or pipe end or whatever. So he should let the air out at the highest point which I am afraid is the attic. Also what I do not understand is why nobody looks WHY air is in the system. My automatic air release is on or better in the Nefit heater. I only let the air out before the winter when the CV is running again every day. Also you must fill the system up again with new water after releasing the air. Which off coarse introduce air in the system and then you have to let that out, fill it again etc etc..
Thanks Wim, there is a manual air release at a high point next to the immersion heater tank in the airing cupboard, plus another on the pump itself plus on top of the water feed to the boiler there is a magnetic water cleaner called ironically a "Magnaclean" which takes any rust out of the system, there is also a bleed point on top of this, i think it is the combi boilers that do not need the tank in the loft but i am not sure if that is correct or not, The boiler has a digital screen on the front and if i read it correctly will show an "F22" code for low water pressure, i have also looked but can't find the two taps or loop that would allow you to repressure the system, there is only one tap next to the condenser outlet, Having had a quick read up it would seem it is quite a common problem over here for air to get sucked in from the pipe that is in the water tank. Apparently it is a "new efficient non magnetic capture!"
I had a Vaillant combi (central heating / domestic hot water) boiler many years ago - never had a happ'orth of bother with it. I can understand switching off the central heating in the summer but doesn't your friend use it for hot water throughout the year?
Yes David the hot water is on all year round, i forgot to say, the problem started around six weeks back when "apparently" the condenser pipe to the u bend under the sink got blocked, the plumber or whoever blamed my friend for blocking the pipe saying he put too much rubbish down the plug hole which caused the fault but when i took it all apart it was as clean as a whistle.
