Boiler Question

Sorry cross post, get the vaillant man out you've paid for a good boiler so make the most of the warrenty.

[shiftin_gear98]

Thanks DuncanC, lesson learnt - use the sodding valves on the radiator!
Could it be simply a case it taking it out and wiping and putting it back in? Looks like you just pull that metal clip out, obviously once drained and off. As mentioned whole system is fairly new, just had its year service last month. Also got one of those magnet filter things on it to catch the crap.

If it's under warranty get it fixed. If you mess about with it and something else goes wrong you end up in the world of "well if you hadn't done that then it wouldn't have failed."
That and gas safe are getting very sniffy about people messing about inside boilers.
Also your house insurance might take a dim view of it as well.
Basically if you can get it fixed for free do so as it isn't worth the potential hassle.

[Red ones]

Always take out boiler and heating system insurance cover. You can usually find it at £10pcm. It includes an annual inspection which is usually £80, so you're paying £40 a year to cover almost everything except when the boiler is truly dead and is scrap.

[SV650rules]

Can't see a problem with leaving the pump airvent closed as the system should have an overpressure (set to 3 bar) vent anyway straight next to the boiler (between the boiler and the manual shut-off vaves) that vents to an outside pipe (these sometimes stick open as well - oh joy). Yours is a pressurised combi boiler so the boiler has two heat exchangers, one for the hot water and one for the radiators and piping is completely separate (hot water side has a pressure switch that detects pressure drop when a tap or shower is turned on and fires up the boiler). Any trapped air will normally find its way to upstairs rads so check if any of them not heating up.

I never take rads off to paint behind them, it's just tempting fate. When you mess with household stuff that ain't broken things can snowball quickly - and modern boilers are tricky - they have so many automatic and self-check stuff in them.

If you have a thermostatic valve on the radiator you need to take the thermostat head off (normally held on by a knurled ring) and screw on a maintenance cap that holds the valve properly fully closed (these are supplied with each valve but if someone else installed the valves they do not always pass them on to you) the valve on the other side of rad will be a lockshield valve (it has a plastic cap over it, this is the one the engineers use to balance the system flow (make sure one radiator is not stealing flow from the others), there is no handle on this one you will need a spanner to turn it, make sure you count the number of turns to close it and then when you have finished open it up the same number of turns)..

If you just have manual valves one of them will have a plastic handle on it - this is to turn off the flow through the rad, the other one will be a lockshield valve as above.

[maviczap]

Originally Posted by Red ones

Always take out boiler and heating system insurance cover. You can usually find it at £10pcm. It includes an annual inspection which is usually £80, so you're paying £40 a year to cover almost everything except when the boiler is truly dead and is scrap.

Excellent point, mines being serviced today for £75, but I know that its going to need some extra work which I'll have to fork out for sooner or later

[Blapper]

The other important reason for not having air in the system is that you need to create an environment where corrosion does not take place. The monkeys that built my house didn't install a vent at all and had put a belly in the cold feed pipe (open system) so air could not even escape that way. Result is corrosion products blocking the manifold pipe so the system now needs power-flushing. £700 kerr-ching, thank you very much.