Air in hot water system

Chazfem

We've been having a few issues with our heating system the last while. One issue was that the boiler would not always start, sometimes pressing the reset button worked, sometimes not. The second was that the heating would come on even when the inside switch was in the "off" position, the orange light would be on anyway even if the system didn't kick in. The boiler started emitting black smoke which seemed serious so the landlady sent out a plumber to us last Thursday.

The plumber couldn't understand why the orange light was on and unscrewed the switch from the wall to have a look and asked if we could get an electrician out right away to sort it. We couldn't so he opted to turn it off at the fuse box. He was satisfied the boiler was working when he left but unfortunately I realised after he left that it didn't stay on for more than a few minutes at a time. He said there were no issues with the boiler itself anymore and that it was an electrical issue and told me I would have to turn the heating on and off via the fuse box until we got an electrician in to replace the switch. (He left the switch hanging out of my wall and it's right next to where I wash up....)

As luck would have it we were booked up to get a Climote put in on Friday so I thought we'd be all set! The electrician said that the orange light being constantly on was not an electrical issue but probably the external thermostat dial turned up to high. He was right! For some reason it was turned up to 10 instead of 0. Amazed the man who specializes in boilers did not think of this but anyway... One problem solved, alas we had a new one.

On Friday morning when I woke up I had noticed the sound of gushing water coming from the hot tank which seemed unusual. This gurgling, running water sound is coming from the rads, the cold water tank in the attic, the hot tank and the boiler itself and hasn't stopped since Friday morning. We found out this is probably air in the system so on Saturday we bled the rads. Loads of air came out of all of them but still the boiler turns off after a few minutes and the gurgling continued. On Sunday I tried the rad in the hall again and loads more air came out. I was told that if there is that much air in the system then there is probably a leak. There is nothing coming out of the overflow and I can't see any leaks in the house (thank goodness). However there is some pretty bad flooding around the boiler. Because of the weather it's hard to say whether this is simply rain water collecting (there is a bit of a dip there) or if there is indeed a leak coming from the boiler. It does look a lot worse than usual, it's like a pond tbh and there is definitely a trickling sound coming from inside it.

We have rented this house for that last 4 years and top up our oil tank with drums of oil as we were warned when we moved here that when you get big fills it may get robbed. This means that our oil has run dry a few times. Also, when the plumber called there was no cap on the tank, it must have blown off but couldn't have been like it for any more than a couple of days tops. It also might be worth mentioning that in all the time we have been here the boiler has not been serviced.

Would all of these problems have been caused by us letting the tank go dry and some rainwater getting into the tank? This is what the plumber is suggesting and in fairness I don't know an awful lot about plumbing but I would have thought that the boiler becoming airlocked would only be a tiny amount of air, not the massive amounts that are evidently in our system. Even if this was our own doing, should he not have checked and fixed that before leaving. He got paid so our system should be up and running imo. Is it possible that perhaps the plumber accidentally knocked something which has caused a leak in the pipes near the boiler and caused this issue?

The boiler is an rbd2.2 firebird if that makes any difference at all.

Wearb

You are renting, so none of it is your problem. the landlord/lady needs to sort it out.

While letting the oil run out regularly causes it own problems, it would not have caused any of the problems you describe.

Chazfem

Wearb wrote: »

You are renting, so none of it is your problem. the landlord/lady needs to sort it out.

While letting the oil run out regularly causes it own problems, it would not have caused any of the problems you describe.

I didn't think so, thanks for your reply.