Glow worm Flexicom 30 broken down, help/advice needed

[Feef]

Hi, hoping someone may be able to help.

Over the last few weeks with the cold weather, our combi has been intermittently stopping working, and following the advice of our installer (it was installed May 09) we have been pouring warm water on to unfreeze the condensate pipe, switching the boiler off and draining the condensate before reconnecting and restarting. Been a bit of a pain but worked ok till today - yesterday I did this 4 times, but this morning when we woke up (6.30am) the whole system had shut down and was showing an F1 code. Went through process again, system fired up but by 10.30 had started gurgling again so tried the same technique. This time when I tried to fire it up, there was a F3 code showing, which I understand from the manual is the fan, so as it's still under warranty I called Glow worm and they can't send anyone out till Friday. We've 2 small kids, so I called the installer and asked if he might be able to fit us in as an emergency - he is coming but says he doesn't carry parts so may not be able to do anything.

Is it likely that the condensate problem has damaged the fan or are this just unhappy coincidence? Has anyone got any advice or can suggest anything useful I could do, (other than go get us some electric heaters?) If the Glow worm guy shows up on Friday is he likely to carry a part like this?

I'm very cold and very stressed about pipes freezing, and/or having a miserable cold Christmas. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

sounds like water from the backed up condensate has gone into the fan,bad luck i am afraid, fan may be ruined

 

[fixter1]

yeah i agree did one of these the other day the condensate pipe within the boiler from the trap was blocked up cleaned out all was well

 

[Feef]

Thanks so much for replying chaps.

Our installer came out and took a look, water was pouring out the bottom of the boiler but he couldn't see from where. He drained it and got the boiler fired up again - which looks to me, very much a non-plumber, that the fan might not be the problem, whatever the fault code says - but only briefly, half an hour later we are getting no HW at all - cold water is running but nothing coming out the hot tap.

???

So far the heating still seems to be functioning though, for how long I don't know. The installer couldn't give an explanation and just told us to 'keep an eye on it' - but we can't keep on calling him out. Any thoughts?

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

if you have a backed up condensate its possible to have a combustion box/heat exchanger full of water under the heat/ex and bolted to it is the fan,the fan has wiring which goes to the pcb WATER WILL RUN DOWN ANYTHING so potentially you have 1,a wet fan2,wet wiring,3 a wet pcb i think you can see where i am coming from call your installer back, tell him/her bring the hair dryer

 

[Feef]

I can see exactly what you're saying. Don't know if he'll come back out tonight, am I safe enough to leave it running or will that do more damage? And can we dry it out or drain it or do anything else constructive without an engineer?

 

[fixter1]

lol gas man i like the hair dryer coment,,,, deffo the condensate backing up

 

[fixter1]

check the pipe what comes out of the trap up the side ov the boiler,, you will have to take the front cover off, not the pipe that comes out the bottom of the trap and gos outside