Any plumbers in the house?

[baldkev]

Fixed!! With a happy ending! And a minor flood

I opened up the o ring box before starting and found an open packet of bosch ones i bought for the last replacement... and there was another 8 left!

I followed the instructions and had it apart in minutes, the longest process being drain down.

I soak the exchanger with vinegar. After 45 minutes i tipped it out and washed it through, got some dark water and a few small fragments. I wasnt sure it was empty of crud so i made up some citric acid and did that for 30 mins, flushed and decided to do it again ( its only time )
At this point i took a cup of tea and some apple crumble into the lounge and we watched hollingbury drive
When i went back into the kitchen, tyere was quite a bit of water on the worktop.... and floor! One on the valves i shut off must have been slowly letting water past, it slowly filled the boiler until it started coming out of the open heat exchanger holes

Anyway, 5 minutes and I had it back together, purged the hot tap then turned boiler on while i cleaned up the water. It got up to late 70s then cut out and when the reading dropped to 65 it cut back in, so we now have hot running water again

If the rads heat up again I'll get a diverter valve, but for a minute, I'll call this a success!
Thank you for your input everyone

 

[John Brown]

I vaguely remember that the partially blocked heat exchanger was causing the pressure to force the diverter valve to move against the spring, and thus sending hot water into the rads, instead of the taps.
But it's a few years back, and I haven't had occasion to refresh that memory...

Glad you fixed it!

 

[Fergie 307]

You can get a repair kit for most diverter valves, often don't even have to take the valve body out to change it. Quite often If it's stuck you can remove the electric actuator from the end and then stick a finger in the hole to push on the end of the valve pin to free it. But hopefully now your best exchanger is clean the valve may behave itself. Glad you've got it going again, and saved yourself a few bob.

 

[baldkev]

Tonight i ran the kids a bath and it got hotter than it had been getting and the boiler was running properly, however the radiators also got hot looks like im not quite done!

 

[DBT85]

I did the motor on our valve 18 months ago, easy to do.