Greenstar 30si combi - hot water problem

[victoria]

Hello, like loads of other people it seems, I've had problems with my external condensate pipe during this cold spell. I cut my losses - and the pipe - last night, and that finally did the trick - I got heating and hot water back. However, we've now lost the hot water - the heating is working fine, and my lodger says he had a hot shower this morning, but despite frequent applications of boiling water over what's left of the external pipe, we now can't get more than a couple of seconds of luke warm water out of the tap. I'm supposing there must be another problem, because if the pipe was frozen, the heating would presumably have stopped too. Can anyone shed any light on what that might be, or what I could try doing to pin the problem down? Thank you!

 

[wnjswozo]

re check con pipe,con trap

 

[victoria]

Hi, thanks for your reply. I've rechecked the condensate pipe, but don't know where the trap is - from what I've googled, it sounds like it'll be inside the boiler, but I can't find anything to show me what it would look like, so I'm thinking I'd better not mess. I've realised now that if I turn the heating off, the hot water works perfectly - I just can't have them both working at the same time. Does this sound like a diverter valve problem? I've got a plumber who'll hopefully be able to come out on Tuesday, and I'm pretty chuffed to be able to have had a shower so I'm not in dire straights or anything, I would just like to try and understand. Thanks again for your help!

 

[oldplumber]

hw always takes priority over heating, so hw water on will stop heating side during the time hw on. sounds like you have a problem with your diverter vlave tho, so call in your gas safe registered plmber to have a look

 

[victoria]

Thanks oldplumber. I've got a corgi plumber who I'm hoping will be able to come out tomorrow, so I'll run it by him of course. What's weird though, given what you've said, is that the heating seems to be taking precedence over the hot water. I can't get hot water unless I turn the heating off first. Can you advise as to how much I'd be looking at for a new diverter valve? Many thanks