CREAM CARPETS!! A Simple Radiator Repair Goes Horribly Wrong

本站添加: 2026-05-24

[00:00:03]Oh, didn't expect that.

[00:00:20]Let's do the other side now.

[00:00:27]money.

[00:00:32]>> Good morning people. It is Wednesday the 25th of March and I remember that because it's another year that I'm renewed with Gas Safe. And I'll be perfectly honest.

[00:00:45]I think it's a waste of money because Gas Safe, I actually don't really think that they're here for us engineers. It's just a money-making thing.

[00:00:57]every time I remember specifically when I first qualified and things were obviously a little bit gray in terms of what I needed to classify as maybe at risk or ID or something like that. I remember specifically and this hasn't changed since I went to look at a cooker went to the gas safety and there was some plastic trunking running behind the cooker. Now, that plastic trunking had melted. Basically, it had signs of distress on it from the heat from the cooker.

[00:01:28]So, I called up Gas Safe and I wanted to double check. Is this at risk or is it ID? You know what they said to me? Okay, firstly, I'm going to say at the time, I would have considered that ID because there's heat when they're using the cooker getting to it and it's already melted.

[00:01:50]So, and there's cabling behind there.

[00:01:54]Now, I was told I was wrong. And now when I think about it, I do kind of agree, but I kind of don't. What they said to me was, "Is it on fire right now in front of you?" I was like, "No, but there's signs of distress on it. It has melted and there's electrical cables behind it. Is it on fire right now?" I was like, "No." Okay. So, then it's just at risk.

[00:02:19]I'm like, okay, but if I leave it at risk and then it sets on fire and I haven't done anything about it or I've just done it as an at risk, where does that leave me? That, oh, use engineers judgment. Okay, so in my head, I'm thinking this is already melted. What's to stop it from setting on fire? I should be IDing this. Oh, no, you can't do that. It's not an ID situation.

[00:02:46]So it's engineers judgment on site but then I'm classifying it wrong but it's my judgment but it's wrong. So where do I stand? And this is every single time you call up Gas Safe and you ask for some advice because I'm paying for a membership. I want advice. The advice that they always give you and this is their get out of jail free card is you're the engineer on site. Use your judgment. I am using my judgment, but then when I'm explaining to you what I feel the classification should be, you're telling me it's wrong, but then you're not actually giving me advice.

[00:03:22]So, what am I paying for? I'm paying for a monthly magazine that gets sent out to me, which I'll be honest, goes straight in the bin. And what there's the I just think the whole system, the whole gas industry is so highly unregulated.

[00:03:40]There's so many people out there doing actual dodgy work and nothing happens to them. Gas safe won't get involved unless a customer actually complains. Like I've been to I'm sure some of you guys have as well. You've been to so many jobs where you're like, "How did someone get away with?" In fact, yesterday a colleague sent me pictures of a a boiler service we went to. Uh there was a veilent flu going up into the loft and they basically just latched onto the old whatever boiler flu there was. It was like an it was a metal flu and it was just like a ridge terminal. It wasn't even a proper terminal and he said gas said as long as the readings are all okay that's just at risk. Now as far as I know if that's an incorrect use of a fitting that's ID but he was told it was at risk. So it's like what and how is it that everyone else has been to that boiler beforehand have not picked it up and not done anything about it. Now, if something was to happen to that customer and my colleague hadn't done anything about it, it would come back on him. It wouldn't go back on the previous people, the previous six people, including big companies, big corporations that have just turned a blind eye to it. Nothing would happen to them. It's the last person on site. And this is what really annoys me about the gas industry is that it's a lot of it is just covering your backside. I'm paying a membership.

[00:04:59]I expect a service. I expect guidance when I need guidance. You guys, Gas Safe, are meant to be on our side. We are the gas engineers. So, you're meant to be out there to support us, to help us, not throw us under the bus, you know, when a complaint comes through or something like that. It's really frustrating.

[00:05:20]But do you know what what I I there's no point me saying it. Everyone has to sort of come together and do something about it, but nobody will. Nobody will. So it will just carry on being the same thing again and again and again and we'll keep complaining about it but nothing will happen about it because no one wants to do anything about it. Such is life. Such is life.

[00:05:41]I'm sorry I started this. This is a 5minute intro. I've just gone on off on a tangent on a rant or whatever. But tell me do you agree with me or you know what's your thoughts? You you may not agree with me and that's fine as well.

[00:05:53]Comment below. Let me know what you guys think. Um, if you agree or disagree, let's, you know, I'm I'm I'm It's interesting to speak to other engineers and get your opinions on stuff like this so that we can have a discussion about it. It's not an argument. We can have a discussion about it. Some of you may want to argue, you can argue, but I I I like to have these sort of discussions with people because I just think it spreads awareness. It spreads a bit of information, spreads a bit of knowledge to people, and it helps people out. May not help people out. I don't know. I don't care. Well, I do care. Right.

[00:06:23]Let's actually go and do some work after this bloody 5 6 minute intro. I'm back at a job where I've done fair bit of work for this customer. Uh they sent me a picture saying they got a leak from a radiator. They think it's the lock shield. It may be the lock shield, but I can see from the picture there's a stain running down the side of the radiator.

[00:06:41]So I reckon it might just be one of these little bleed blanks. Bleed blanks.

[00:06:46]Bleed valves. So I've got that. I've got lock with me as well. Anyway, what else have I I've got boiler service around the corner from here. Then I've got to go look at a circulation fault and then probably another circulation fault. So, should be a fairly interesting day. And uh hopefully get some good content. And if you guys haven't already, especially after this longass intro, don't forget to like and subscribe. And as a thank you from me and every week, if there's anything that you guys want with any of the brands I'm affiliated with, all the links are in the description. So, you got 10% off Uniite. You've got 15% off Testo at the moment off everything off the website. You got 5% off uh Tool Monster store velocity pro gear for your tool bags and other bits and bobs. 10% off from Rhino for your public liability insurance. And what else? What else?

[00:07:34]Powered. Now, right now, there isn't a specific offer, but they're changing their offers sort of month by month. So, click the link if you want to get involved in job management software and see what offers are available then.

[00:07:46]Right, let's go do some work. Right, so it's as I suspected in the picture I was sent, I could see this stain running down here and it's actually leaking from this blank. It's quite common to think that it's leaking from the valve because obviously the water from here is going to drip onto there and then it looks like it's dripping from the valve, but it's not. It's actually this blank that's dripping. So, I'm going to replace that side and I'm just going to replace this side at the same time. So, cuz that looks a bit crust and it looks like there's a bit of a stain there as well. So, all I got to do on this, shut off both sides, get the work back on here, get the pressure out of it, unwind that, and then replace it with a new That's the bleed and a blank.

[00:08:40]Right, let's get them swapped out.

[00:09:18]Oh, heat, heat.

[00:09:45]Didn't expect that.

[00:09:47]Let's do the other side now.

[00:09:50]Well, that was unexpected. Thought the pressure was off, but seemingly so. There was still a bit of pressure behind it. Luckily, I had the wet back on me, so managed to do it quickly. Um, and then there was another radiator which had the same issue. So, I thought, you know, I've actually got two sets of bleeding blanks, so I just swapped the other one out as well. Now I'm going to quickly recharge the expansion vessel in the boiler cuz they've said that when they've been running the heating, the pressure's been shooting up.

[00:10:20]So yeah, I'm just going to quickly recharge the vessel and then uh get on to the next one.

[00:10:28]Right, next job is a standard boiler service on this one. So, you might remember I did a full service on this a while ago and yeah, this is just not a while ago, last year even. Eco Elite, one of my favorite boilers. So, going to give it a full service. Not full service, standard service today. Say that the heating won't go off, but nothing's cooling at the moment. So, we'll have a look at that afterwards.

[00:10:54]But, let me get the service done and then we'll see if there's anything that needs to be checked on the heating side.

[00:11:00]Oh, so turns out there wasn't actually anything wrong with the heating. It was just the where the thermostat is. It's it's in the hallway, which is open plan.

[00:11:11]So, I just think it takes longer for it to sense the set temperature cuz they were saying that in the bedrooms it's getting it gets hot quicker, which makes sense because bedrooms are smaller enclosed spaces.

[00:11:27]So, it's going to get hotter quicker, whereas where the thermostat is in the hallway, it's going to take longer for it to reach temperature. So, I just have to either just turn the um TRVs down in the bedrooms or uh just set the temperature lower on the thermostat. But, no, everything's working fine on there. Uh now, I am going to Enfield to have a look at a I believe it's a heat only boiler. I'm not sure if it's open vented or pressurized, but it sounds like they're having circulation issues. So, let's go and see what's going on there. Right, got a glow heat only. It is a pressurized system.

[00:12:03]So, they're saying that the hot water circuit is working fine, but heating circuit it keeps faulting out to F25.

[00:12:12]And that's got the alpha pump, which right now that to me looks weak.

[00:12:22]That should be running at more than 10.

[00:12:28]So, I got a feeling that's where the issue is. So, the boiler's fired up.

[00:12:33]Don't if you can see by the reflection and temperature is already starting to shoot up. Yeah, look, it's going to be the pump that's overheating.

[00:12:53]Pump's not strong enough.

[00:12:56]So, let's get one out the van and let's get that pump swapped out. Right.

[00:13:00]Strange one.

[00:13:02]I'm not 100% convinced yet that it is the pump because I've just changed the settings on it and now it's showing 30.

[00:13:12]But we've got 28 mil pipework and it is quite a large property. So, it still may not be up to it or there might be crap in. The system was apparently power flushed about a month ago, I think. So, it's possible that maybe some crap has got caught up in the pump. Hot water circuits running fine, but obviously that's a smaller circuit, so makes sense that that might still be okay. The zone valve, I've just taken it off and open it manually just to make sure that there's nothing restricting that the boiler's been short cycled a couple of times, but it's on about 37° there. So before I start messing around with that, I'm just going to check the NTC's on there. Check the resistance readings on there. So at 37, we probably should be getting as the temperature goes up, the resistance goes down. So should probably be getting maybe about 8 or 9 kiloohms because at 10 25° it should be reading about 10 kiloohms. So at 37, I'm hazarding a guess maybe about 8 or 9 kiloohms. So, let's pop one of the uh sensors off and see what readings we're getting on there. Right. So, let's check this sensor first.

[00:14:24]So, one probe there. Oh, you know what I Right. So, right. That's just proving the leads.

[00:14:35]So, now Right. Yeah. 6.2 2 kiloohms. So that's fine. So it's not that one. Let's check the rear sensor and the return sensor.

[00:15:08]Yeah.

[00:15:11]11.5 kilos.

[00:15:12]sensors are reading fine.

[00:15:15]Right, I think let's have a look at the pump. All right, let's uh firstly see if the pump valves hold. I mean, it's a pressurized system, so I mean that doesn't really mean anything, does it?

[00:15:32]Like what we reckon? Will the valves hold or not?

[00:15:42]Okay, we've got a little bit of water coming out at the moment.

[00:15:54]No, they're not holding.

[00:15:59]That should have stopped by now. Right, let's take the pressure out the system then and do it that way instead.

[00:16:08]Right, let's try that again. And I've dumped the pressure. Luckily, the filling loop was fit the right way around. The non- returnturn valve on the cold side. I've got the new pump ready here. We shouldn't really get might get a bit of water out of here. Hopefully not too much. So, I've just got the bigger bucket here just in case.

[00:16:38]Right.

[00:16:42]Right.

[00:16:50]There's uh stuff in there. There's debris >> in here.

[00:17:05]Obviously, it's gurgling a bit there.

[00:17:08]Just making sure that the body is all clear, which Yeah, there's my Right, let me wire it up, power it up, and see what happens. Right, trying a few other things. Well, let me take the filter out.

[00:17:54]Yeah, that is not going to help the situation.

[00:18:01]That is pretty badly coco.

[00:18:04]So, let's clean that off. And then I'm actually gonna take the boiling plate out of the two port cuz I reckon that's all probably clogged up inside as well. I mean, if that's like that, I wonder what the state of that heating two port is. So, let's clean this off and get another two port out the van.

[00:18:25]Take the balling plate out of it and try and replace that and see if that helps.

[00:18:29]Right. No go on this one for today. I thought, let me just put that back together. So, I took the balling plate out of there. And it was dirty, but it wasn't blocked up or anything. I had the new one ready, but it didn't need it.

[00:18:43]So, I've put the old one back in.

[00:18:45]Keeping the pump in because the old one, the impeller on it, it was all blocked up. So, need a new pump. Cleaned that out. I've just ran the hot water and it's doing the exact same thing. So both heating and hot water it just keeps short cycling short cycling short cycling. The reason why they are getting hot water is because it's a small such a small circuit the hot water one and it's on a low flame. So it's basically just in limp mode and it's just doing a very small circuit keeping that topped up but it just hasn't got enough oomph to go around the whole system. I'm suspecting it's going to be the main heat exchanger that's blocked up. And lo and behold, where I've been putting the stories up on Instagram, someone else has literally just messaged me the same thing three minutes ago. Could even be a main heat exchanger blocked. So, I'm not going crazy. It's uh I've tried everything that I can possibly try in terms of external components, but it's the fact that it's doing it both on the heating and the hot water points to a problem with the boiler. So, I'm going to look for a well, we're going to look at options. Recondition main heat exchanger, new main heat exchanger, new boiler, and uh we'll go from there. So, we'll come back to this one another day.