Hi, I am a homeowner but caught between a rock & a hard place.
I am trying to get a Vaillant ecoTEC 630 plus serviced but the gas safe engineer & Vaillant engineer say one thing, whilst the SGN engineer says another. I do not know how to proceed and would value some informed advice.
The rock – a Vaillant approved gas safe engineer came to service the boiler but found low gas pressure (1-2mbar) at test point during full load check (boiler set to max heat) with 5 ring gas-hob also on full and said that the boiler is unsafe to use. Still under guarantee so Vaillant engineer came & replaced gas inlet value but then said it still has too low gas pressure (7mbar) and is unsafe to use. The Vaillant maintenance instructions specify 13-23mbar as permissible so I understand their conclusion.
The hard place - I next contacted SGN who came and checked the gas supply-side & meter. They said that was all ok and at the expected & acceptable pressure. SGN also gave opinion that the 3 metre run of 22mm pipe from meter to boiler, down to 10 cm run of 15mm pipe into boiler inlet, should be an ok sizing.
The SGN engineer said the boiler was perfectly safe to use and that SGN had instructed boiler manufacturers & installers not to perform full load tests any more because the recently replaced 20mm plastic gas pipe from the road to the house would not support a full load test with boilers like this & would always show low pressure under a full load test regardless of meter-to-boiler pipe capacity. He also said that because the boiler would never run at full load in real life it was not necessary to perform this test from a safety point of view.
When in normal operating mode, everything is fine. But not during full load test. Who is right here? I am at a loss how to proceed. SGN say everything is fine but I can’t get it serviced because Vaillant & the independent gas safe engineer say it is not.
I am trying to get a Vaillant ecoTEC 630 plus serviced but the gas safe engineer & Vaillant engineer say one thing, whilst the SGN engineer says another. I do not know how to proceed and would value some informed advice.
The rock – a Vaillant approved gas safe engineer came to service the boiler but found low gas pressure (1-2mbar) at test point during full load check (boiler set to max heat) with 5 ring gas-hob also on full and said that the boiler is unsafe to use. Still under guarantee so Vaillant engineer came & replaced gas inlet value but then said it still has too low gas pressure (7mbar) and is unsafe to use. The Vaillant maintenance instructions specify 13-23mbar as permissible so I understand their conclusion.
The hard place - I next contacted SGN who came and checked the gas supply-side & meter. They said that was all ok and at the expected & acceptable pressure. SGN also gave opinion that the 3 metre run of 22mm pipe from meter to boiler, down to 10 cm run of 15mm pipe into boiler inlet, should be an ok sizing.
The SGN engineer said the boiler was perfectly safe to use and that SGN had instructed boiler manufacturers & installers not to perform full load tests any more because the recently replaced 20mm plastic gas pipe from the road to the house would not support a full load test with boilers like this & would always show low pressure under a full load test regardless of meter-to-boiler pipe capacity. He also said that because the boiler would never run at full load in real life it was not necessary to perform this test from a safety point of view.
When in normal operating mode, everything is fine. But not during full load test. Who is right here? I am at a loss how to proceed. SGN say everything is fine but I can’t get it serviced because Vaillant & the independent gas safe engineer say it is not.