Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting in

[monkeyalan]

Hi guys,

First post.

I have a Worcester greenstar junior 26cdi - something like that. Anyway, a few times in this winter and last it has packed up - heating engineer came out, said it was the condensate pipe freezing, unthawed it - dried out the dampness that got inside from where the water had backed up, fired it up - all worked fine. Rinse and repeat a few times here and there.

After it happened again and i was confident I could do the same thing - the next time it happened (Start of December) - i turned off the power to the thing, took the front off, disconnected the condensate pipe from under the boiler and stuck a 2 litre jug under it - dried out the damp bits inside the boiler again, fired it up - it worked!

So now, I have the condensate draining into a jug, which I have to empty every day, obviously. Problem solved.

But no - I keep getting a tiny bit of water inside the boiler housing - there is a very slight "groove" that runs from the circular black plastic/rubber housing (Please dont laugh too much at the terminology I use ) over towards where this little electrical connection is, which I think connects the gas valve? - anyway, water gets onto that little channel/groove and eventually, the boiler safety kicks in and stops it firing.

So, I dry this out, turn it all back on and it fires again.

Back in August - the same heating engineer came out and said that because of the "sideways" driving rain, moisture had got in through the flue, into the boiler, causing the damp.

The question I have is - is this same thing happening? At night, I flick the temperature right down so that it's off for 3 or 4 hours, before coming back on in the early hours - could ice/frost form inside the flue? My kitchen is also quite cold over night - so could condensation be occuring for that reason? These problems have ONLY occurred due to weird and wonderful whether - be it rain or most common - sub-zero conditions.

Any ideas welcome - obviously now it's NOT the frozen pipe causing the problem, but there is some dampness getting into the system and it appears to be collecting at the bottom of the circular black plastic thing, which appears to come straight down from where the flue is joined to the wall.

Initially, everything was fine - but the last 2 days i've had to dry this dampness twice - it is literally just 1/4 of a teaspoon of water, hardly any, but it only takes a drop.....

One more thing - the boiler was serviced less than 4 weeks ago - everything fine and working well.

Cheers

 

[Blake]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

There may be damage caused by the condensate back feeding into the heat exchanger which may have cracked a part or the plate on the sump of the heat exchanger may not have been re-fitted correctly if removed before to clean.

Water gets onto the gas valve connections which prevents the boiler from firing.

You need to get a gas engineer out to check there is no damage as we don't advise folk to start taking the cover off the boiler on here due to possible consequences.

 

[monkeyalan]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

Yes, I appreciate that. I am merely turning the power off, drying the thing out and then turning it back on again. I will go no further than that, just after some diagnosis. I will certainly not attempt to fix myself - just want to actually be able to explain to a heating engineer what appears to be happening.

I think the heat exchanger may well have slight damage which is where this is occuring - however - I am getting no drop in pressure, so I take it the condensate which has caused the damage is either not being expunged fast enough, or it's getting in from the flue from the outside air, somehow?

 

[Blake]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

Difficult to say. If no drop in pressure then you can rule out a leaking heat exchanger. if there is an issue with the flue then this could cause water to enter the boiler, but without looking at it I can only speculate.

This is a difficult one to diagnose with seeing it i'm afraid. You just need to check all plastic parts and seals to ensure no signs of water.

 

[tackleburger]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

I would bet you have a small leak on the condensate exit pipe between the heat exchanger and the condensate. Don't believe it can be rain sounds a bit ridiculous to me.

 

[monkeyalan]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

Curiously - I have noticed that even though switching the boiler off for say, 6 hours, during the day (I often use an oil filled rad in the lounge in particularly cold weather, rather than heating the entire house) - a small amount of condensate has collected in the jug that I have under the disconnected condensate pipe!

How can this happen? Surely condensate should only be produced when the boiler is running - this boiler has a syphonic trap, so that should only chuck water out in specific quantities, I assumed.

 

[Blake]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

I would bet you have a small leak on the condensate exit pipe between the heat exchanger and the condensate. Don't believe it can be rain sounds a bit ridiculous to me.

There is an Alpha (can't remember model) which had a bad design fault on it combined with some installers putting the flue with an angle on when the MI state not to as the internal elbow was already angled.

These 2 factors resulted in rain water running down the air intake and filling up the combustion chamber.

I have been to a couple this year and after a couple of calls to Alpha tech they finally admitted the design error.

 

[monkeyalan]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

Hi gents.

Seal on sump was not replaced correctly when serviced...or, at some point it was not put back on properly. Nor was the condensate trap cleaned out...ever! Someone who wasn't a (censored) came out and put right what some other (censored) did not do properly in the first place :S

No real damage to speak of. Fingers crossed everything's fixed.

Bronzino's first statement was basically correct - you should have entered the lottery that day

 

[Blake]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

Thanks for letting us know and glad you got it sorted. If only I had entered the lottery hey

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

dont worcesters have a fail safe continuity connection on the trap like the performa?

 

[abcgascare]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

Any one want my advice stay clear of Worcester Bosch they have a Aluminium Heat exchanger & realy do need servicing every year & some models are a pain to service the aluminium oxide breaks down & fills the condensate trap & the heat exchanger needs cleaning regular.
Buy any model with a Stainless Steel heat exchanger ,The Viessmann cleans its self aint that clever still needs sevicing but I wouldnt loose sleep if it wasnt.

 

[Blake]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

no mate, not the ones I've seen anyway

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

if every condenser had this damage would be non existent if it freezes

 

[monkeyalan]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

Hello again!

Well, re-sealing the cross-hatched connection thing which attaches at the bottom of the large silver thing did not actually fix the problem.

What has been done now is to replace the soft rubber hose that leads from the bottom-end of the where the flue housing meets the metal plate, down to the condensate trap. When the boiler was filled up with water (condensate pipe bunged up on purpose) - a tiny spot of water appeared right at the point where this soft black rubber hose/pipe connects to the rest of the plastic housing that goes straight up to the flue.

This small black rubber piece has a wide opening at the top, which narrows, and then there are horizontal parallel grooves that run round the inner part of the pipe. On the old part - these looked a bit perished, they were all wavy and looked slightly damaged. It doesn't look split, but certainly not right. It obviously could well be split ever so slightly. It's not all the way round that it's perished either, just on one side.

This is the last resort really - i dont think anybody has a clue what else it could be if this is NOT the reason for the very small leak.

Any ideas chaps? Could this pipe having a bad seal cause water to sneak through and outsite of that rubber pipe? It is certainly where the water was appearing, inside - it seems logical....but after all this time I still need to see it to believe it

Cheers

 

[cdodds2004]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

if its the updated trap on the junior then make sure its locked in place, it sort of swings into posistion and locks, they are known to leak if not locked in place, also the check the top o ring of the trap isnt damaged!

 

[brightongoose]

Re: Worcester Bosch Greenstar - Condensate pipe disconnected but water still getting

Hi Alan,
I have a Greenstar 29he, had the same problems- Alas or rather lucky me, I was in hospital when it went really T*Ts up on the wife last year.
So I read the manuals ripped out the skinny bore and replaced with 1,1/2" with a fall that any footballer would be proud of. All problems to date eradicated. Waiting for this years snow...LOL.