Heating and Furnace issues

bluevoice

Hiya -

We have just moved into our first home, and have discovered some issues that may or may not be related to each other. Any advice would be appreciated before we go spending a fortune on plumbers/electricians (we don't have it )

Issue #1: The furnace (oil fired central heating) turns on just fine, but after only minutes, switches off and will not turn back on. A week ago, the furnace seemed to work just fine. Just not now. It never heats up the rads in this short amount of time it is on. We purchased new oil, the oil guy said the system did not need to be bled, as the oil, although too low to fire, was not completely gone before we called him. The furnace fired when he put the oil in, but stopped five minutes after he left.
Now, we did find out (in the recent rain) that the roof of the boiler house had a leak, and it had been leaking onto the electrics we sealed the leak and moved the electrics, but it had gotten wet. It does work, however - at least for a few moments. We are very frustrated. Any ideas?

Issue # 2: There is a pipe coming out of the roof - we think it may be an overflow pipe from the water tank - and this time, after we turned on the furnace, and it shut itself off - water started pouring out of the pipe. The water was not on at this point. This may or may not be related to the furnace issue.

Issue # 3: There is a back boiler as well - but as far as we can figure, it hasn't been used in a while. Could this be related somehow?

I realize this is a lot of questions, but we could really use some advice before making some expensive appointments with specialists - thanks a mil!

Pete67

The two items are most likely not related. If your oil tank reached a level where the boiler could not run then it will have drawn in air and will need to be bled. This is fairly easy to do, there should be a bleed screw on the burner somewhere, you may have to remove covers to find it. Find the model of the burner and google for the instruction manual if you need to.

If the electrics got wet them they may be in a dangerous condition, so unless you know exactly what you are doing get them checked out professionally.

landydef

sounds possibly like your circulating pump to me,if the boiler is coming on for a few minutes and heating up but the hot water is not being dispersed therefore tripping the high limit stat on the boiler so you cant turn it on for a while.
the leak in the roof could have shorted-out the electrics on the pump or it could be just worn out but as pete67 said i wouldnt touch the electrics unless you know what your doing

ART6

landydef wrote: »

sounds possibly like your circulating pump to me,if the boiler is coming on for a few minutes and heating up but the hot water is not being dispersed therefore tripping the high limit stat on the boiler so you cant turn it on for a while.
the leak in the roof could have shorted-out the electrics on the pump or it could be just worn out but as pete67 said i wouldnt touch the electrics unless you know what your doing

I'd agree with that. CH pumps are inclined on occasion to stop pumping, and often you can get them going again with a smart tap (gentle) with a hammer, since they work through a magnetic coupling. Wet electrics are not necessarily a problem since rain water is not salty or anything, and doesn't generally leave deposits that would do damage. Take the cover off the electrical connections that got wet and give them a good shot of WD40.

The water pouring out of the roof overflow suggests what landydef said. The pump isn't running so the expansion pipe to the roof tank is spilling water back into the tank and causing it to overflow.

Hotblack Desiato

We had the same thing when we moved into our house. Old oil-fired boiler that would fire up and run for about 5 minutes then cut out. The pump had failed so the water in the boiler was overheating and causing it to cut out. As the radiators were in bad shape (some nearly rusted through) we bit the bullet and replaced the whole system and got a condensing gas boiler. The heat loss through the pipes to the old boiler in the outhouse must have been something else, they were above ground and there was only thin insulation on them.

The shower was busted too when we moved in. No heating and no shower and they were living there for months if not years in that state, as the sale took a long time to complete (because they never bothered to get planning permission for their shed or extension and we had to wait for their solicitor to sort it out.) FFS, some people...

As for their taste in decor.. and their botched DIY. The surveyor warned us about a few things but it's only when you start ripping the decor off that you can see the full story.

They had a huge leak in the past from the shower pump which they let go long enough to get wet rot in the floor and joists (the joists holding the bath up were rotten almost right through, we were lucky it didn't join us downstairs for dinner.) They fixed the leak then installed a new tiled floor on top of the rotten wood. They hid the mouldy failing plaster downstairs, saturated over years by the leak above, behind hideous painted vinyl wallpaper. We had to knock down bathroom wall to allow replacement of joists, replace half of living room ceiling, re-plaster entire living room.

Same thing in the living room floor, the old radiator had been leaking over a long period and soaked the floorboards. The old lino they left under the semi-solid wooden flooring they laid just let the wet spread further!

I wanted to run a mile but the wife insisted we buy because it's a good location... two years in now, I reckon I'll just about have this place sorted when I pop my clogs!

Rant over

annoke

Hi there - can you help?

We've been a bit gung ho! We ran out of oil. Just got new oil in and outside boiler wouldn't go. Hit restart button but didn't fire. Took off outer cover around reset button and turned a flathead screw as we thought this was the way to bleed it. This didn't work so used spanner to unscrew hexagonal type bolt below and when hit reset button this caused air & sputtering - then it would cut out - we hit reset button a few more times, more air & sputtering and oil was coming through. Turned on control button in the house and boiler fired and kept going for a while but cut out again. Now won't fire even when we hit reset button.

1. Have we messed up by turning the flathead screw - is this something we need to adjust?
2. Have we caused a problem by hitting the reset button too many times?
3. Is there something more we can do ourselves or admit defeat and call in the pros?

Thanks for any help/advice you can give. Hoping that our ignorance hasn't made things worse than they were at the start.

Thanks,
Ann