Boiler trouble usually starts where you think it’s coming from – that dodgy old boiler, that worn-out machine – but where does it actually start?
What always goes wrong with these older systems is the really tiny parts. It’s the five-pound sensor or your printed circuit board.
A PCB is effectively your boiler’s brain: a complex little disc of electronics and wires on which everything depends. You wouldn’t think it had anything to do with a faulty or old boiler: after all, a bit of computerised wizardry inside a tank can hardly be that big of a deal. But it’s often the most likely culprit behind boiler failure due to its delicate electronic circuitry. PCBs break and fail because of damp, not because the boiler is getting old. The damp environment of the boiler slowly creeps in because seals get old and corroded. What looks like a major, unfixable issue may actually mean the simple exchange of a £40 part. For Boiler Replacement Cheltenham, contact //www.blu-fish.co.uk/gas-heating-services-cheltenham/new-boilers-cheltenham/
Another part of the machinery that is likely to go haywire on you sooner rather than later is your diverter valve, a clever device which controls the direction of the gas flow in combi boilers – those without a separate water tank. Its job is to channel the flow between the heating and the hot taps. With thousands of micro-movements a year, the friction builds up fast, and before long, the valve begins to play up. Wear and tear can damage that valve or get in the way and impede its movement. That tends to happen more frequently in systems with lots of limescale or grit in them. When it fails, people think their radiator isn’t working properly or that the taps aren’t getting hot. They tend to assume the boiler is on the fritz when in reality, it’s the valve failing.
Likewise, a commonly failing component is the heat exchanger. That sounds like exactly what might cause people to think their boiler is giving up the ghost – heat failing to materialise: surely that must be the boiler itself breaking down, right? Not necessarily. Your boiler’s heat exchanger rarely breaks down through age alone, but it can suffer terribly at the hands of bad luck and human negligence. If you live in hard water areas and have never descaled your system, limescale might build up inside your heat exchanger. Or maybe the heating system hasn’t been properly flushed, so there’s loads of sludge in there too. The heat exchanger doesn’t break down because it’s old and decaying – more because it is suffocating under the weight of whatever else is in there.
