Vokera Gas Boiler 16E

RockMonster

Hi,
Any good ideas on how to solve the following problem with the above gas boiler.

Last night my neighbour noticed that there was water spitting out from the over flow on the pressure relief valve on my gas boiler. The pressure relief valve is set at 3 bar also indicates it on the gauge on the front of the boiler. I changed the heat exchanger in this boiler a couple of years ago and got board gais out to do the yearly service after just to make sure everything was in top form for the winter months ahead.

Could the pump be failing?? not circulating the water fast enough. I think the its non presurised system, with a tank in the attic feeding the loop.

Any help would be gratefully appreicated.

Regards,
R

ART6

RockMonster wrote: »

Hi,
Any good ideas on how to solve the following problem with the above gas boiler.

Last night my neighbour noticed that there was water spitting out from the over flow on the pressure relief valve on my gas boiler. The pressure relief valve is set at 3 bar also indicates it on the gauge on the front of the boiler. I changed the heat exchanger in this boiler a couple of years ago and got board gais out to do the yearly service after just to make sure everything was in top form for the winter months ahead.

Could the pump be failing?? not circulating the water fast enough. I think the its non presurised system, with a tank in the attic feeding the loop.

Any help would be gratefully appreicated.

Regards,
R

If the pressure gauge on the boiler is reading 3 bar then the relief valve will open and stop it getting any higher. The fact that there is a pressure gauge suggests that you have pressurised system, since if you didn't then the boiler would be venting through a vent pipe into a tank in the attic. The system would be operating at atmospheric pressure so there would be no need for a guage.

That said, it sounds like the whole system is over pressurised, and my guesses are that the circulating pump is either faulty or stuck, in which case the boiler could be overheating and thus creating excessively hot water with steam in it. Alternatively the boiler thermostat could be faulty and not cutting the boiler out on high temperature.

So. Things to check are first, with the boiler running, do all of your radiators get hot (not just warm -- hot)? It's possible for some of them to still work without a pump due to natural circulation, but that would not be sufficient to suit the boiler. If all that's OK then I'd try turning the boiler thermostat right down and see if the boiler cuts out. If it doesn't, then you have a faulty stat. That's simple enough to replace if you know what you're doing.

There are other possibilities perhaps -- if you have all of your radiators turned off and the valves to the hot water coil in the hot tank closed right down, you might not have sufficient circulation to stop the boiler overshooting. If the other test work out OK you could try opening the balancing valve on the bottom of the coil. Or, if you do have a pressurised system, it could be low on water and need topping up. There will be a valve somewhere (normally either near the hot tank or near the boiler) with a means of connecting it to mains water. If everything else is OK I'd suggest trying that.

Whatever the cause, you shouldn't let it continue since if the relief valve is dumping the the system will need topping up, and every time that happens you add oxygen into the system. That increases the rate of corrosion in radiators etc.

f1_jb

A Vokera 16e is a system boiler and altough there is an expansion tank in the attic it should just be filling the system and there should be no vent pipe over the tank.

If you have been getting bord gas to service your boiler then there may well be no air in the expansion vessel which is located at the back of the boiler, bord gas service engineers won't check the vessel as the say it on the wet side of the system (what a load of bull) it should be part of the service as it in the boiler. To top up the aie it involves draining the boiler which is too much like work for them.

With no air in the expansion vessel the pressure will rise very fast when you turn on the boiler and easily reach 3bar causing the safety valve to lift. Worst case the expansion vessel could be gone which happens sometimes.

Vokera where doing an all in call out of €180 which included parts but I'm not sure if there still doing it during the winter but it will only take a phone call to find out there number is 0567 755055.

RockMonster

Cheers Lads for yer help, found out what the problem was in end. Feckin Expansion vessel bladder is burst, checked to see that their was air pressure in bladder when I found water kinda knew what issue was.. so part on order collecting it at weekend.

Thanks again

Regards,
R

jambo73

I have the same boiler but my problem is that the pressure drops off all the time to 0 so the boiler won't light and the house is baltic, so I have to top the system up from the mains valve under the boiler, once it gets above 1 it kicks in, I turn the valve off, (best working pressure is between 1 & 1.5 according to the manual) so you would think happy days but noooooooo the pressure then keeps rising and rising, this morning the wife had to turn it off when it was reading above 4 and about to blow..... came home tonight and the pressure is down to zero, top it up again and the whole thing starts over again..... its been on about 1 hour and its now at 3 bar which is 1 bar over the red warning line ....... I've no idea what to do, every plummer I seem to ring tell me they aren;t busy as soon as I explain the problem the phone goes dead or they have a load on ....... so to me its either a simple job to fix and they won't make a penny out of it or its a crap niggley job to do which is too much like hassle...... any ideas to help me out ????????

f1_jb

The pressure is rising because there no air in the expansion vessel or as above the vessel is gone.

How old is the boiler?

RockMonster, expansion vessels tend to go because of contaminated system water(dirty), so before you fit the new one you may want to check your water quality to see if the system needs flushing and a inhibitor, Gary.

jambo73

the boiler is only about 3 or 4 years old, but the funny thing is the pressure only falls and rises when its very cold outside, take today for instance, I topped up the pressure last night, it hit 3 bar and stayed there, but there is plenty of water dripping out the overfow pipe out the back of the boiler ...... it it is the exp vessel where abouts would I find it .... looked all over the place but can't see it anywhere ....... if only I was a plummer or could get one to sort it out !!!!!!!!!

copper12

http://www.vokera.co.uk/productdetails.asp?prodid={6BF77616-10EB-4B97-B51D-8D1E5DB8368F}&id={7F682E9E-0C3C-4153-BBE7-45B06195D769}&catid={76F0C0AB-3C75-4D4E-A894-D07BAA97D66C}&n=mynutese
this might help

RockMonster

Jambo, the pressure vessel is located at the back of the boiler should be able to access the air nozzel on it from the top. It will be some similar to a car tyre valve. Screw off the car, depress the centre of the valve if water spurts out you have the same problem as I have...... Vokera have a distributors based in Kilkenny and they do post them out for an additional charge of €20, the use interlink. There are sectional drawings in the installation manual to get the part no for that particular boiler.

Me as my boiler is older (actually I should have edited the thread as mine is a Minuyte 14SE posted it before checking the model no.) I went and got one new on ebay for €50 which includes delivery from UK as Vokera was charging me €85 plus VAT and another €20 for delivery. Rip off Ireland is still here.

Hope this helps

Jaco1940

Can anyone help me
I had my vokera boiler serviced last week the service man inflated the pressure bladder since the service the boiler is malfunctioning when I set the temp to 60 degrees it heats up to 65 before cutting out and then drops to 40 before cutting back in. Could the pressure change be causing the problem