Hi all. I'm having a problem with either my Worcestor combi boiler or central heating pipes where the pressure is dropping. I'm hoping people can give me some help to determin where the fault is.
At the start of the year it was a very slow drop and an occasional topup was enough.
This might not be relevant but around that time I started to notice a 'water hammer' sound when turning off our either our hot or cold taps. I read this could be do to air chambers in the pipes losing their air so I drained the water from the taps and refilled it, that would fix it for maybe a week but it would come back. Doesn't seem anywhere near as bad these days though :/
Now the heating is back on and when we get a much quicker drop of pressure in the boiler. One day I recorded 1.3 bar over 6 hrs 20 min.
Overnight when the heating is off I recorded a 0.5 bar drop of pressure (about 9hrs), though this varies.
I've tried to do a couple of tests to see if it's the boiler. I topped it up, hung a bag on the overflow/blowout pipe outside to catch any water from that but after the pressure dropped to maybe 0.2 bar there was not a drop in the bag.
I did another test last night. I topped the boiler up to 1.5 bar and turned it off. Then a closed the central heating isolator valves under the boiler (I didn't touch the cold/hot water pipes). In the morning the boiler pressure read about 0.8/0.9 bar.
When I reopened the valves this morning I could hear a flow of water for a moment but the pressure reading on the boiler barely moved.
A friend pointed out that when I topped up the boiler the water could still have been warm and as it cooled the pressure could have dropped... so maybe a bad test.
So that's everything I can think of at the moment. What do you guys think? Boiler problem or a central heating leak? Any help is greatly appreciated!
At the start of the year it was a very slow drop and an occasional topup was enough.
This might not be relevant but around that time I started to notice a 'water hammer' sound when turning off our either our hot or cold taps. I read this could be do to air chambers in the pipes losing their air so I drained the water from the taps and refilled it, that would fix it for maybe a week but it would come back. Doesn't seem anywhere near as bad these days though :/
Now the heating is back on and when we get a much quicker drop of pressure in the boiler. One day I recorded 1.3 bar over 6 hrs 20 min.
Overnight when the heating is off I recorded a 0.5 bar drop of pressure (about 9hrs), though this varies.
I've tried to do a couple of tests to see if it's the boiler. I topped it up, hung a bag on the overflow/blowout pipe outside to catch any water from that but after the pressure dropped to maybe 0.2 bar there was not a drop in the bag.
I did another test last night. I topped the boiler up to 1.5 bar and turned it off. Then a closed the central heating isolator valves under the boiler (I didn't touch the cold/hot water pipes). In the morning the boiler pressure read about 0.8/0.9 bar.
When I reopened the valves this morning I could hear a flow of water for a moment but the pressure reading on the boiler barely moved.
A friend pointed out that when I topped up the boiler the water could still have been warm and as it cooled the pressure could have dropped... so maybe a bad test.
So that's everything I can think of at the moment. What do you guys think? Boiler problem or a central heating leak? Any help is greatly appreciated!
