Case study of a typical call-out…

A long term customer of mine Mrs R, called yesterday to say she was worried about the noises her Potterton Netaheat boiler is making. Mrs R is a delightful Scottish lady who lost her husband a few years ago so I give her priority on the odd occasion she calls with a concern about her central heating. I arranged to visit at 1.00pm the next day, on Tuesday 26th February 2019 to listen to the noise, and to service and safety check her boiler. 

The boiler behaved perfectly for me and simply would not make the noise she describes. Its not unusual for a boiler to behave PERFECTLY the minute I arrive on site! I initially suspected the boiler control thermostat was failing allowing the boiler to actually boil (paradoxically this is the last thing you want a boiler to do), but we established after a fair bit of testing the thermostat was fine. The boiler was kettling mildly as they often do, and Mrs R said this was similar to the noise she was concerned about, although the noise was much louder sometimes. I checked the header tank in the loft to make sure the system was correctly filled with water and I serviced the boiler. We decided to reduce the burner gas pressure to reduce the boiler heat output and hopefully the noise a little too, and if the problem continues we will add “boiler noise silencer” chemical from Fernox to see if that helps. Ultimately a good powerflush may well be needed but as that’s rather time consuming and expensive we decided to try the low cost options first. 

While I was there Mrs R was concerned that she didn’t know where her mains water stopcock is so we had a hunt for it. I found the incoming plastic water mains pipe entering the bungalow behind the washing machine and it disappeared up behind some wooden boxing. I’m reasonably certain the stopcock is hidden behind the boxing as at the top, only copper tube emerges. Mrs R elected not to have me spend more time cutting away the wooden boxing to investigate further and probably find the stopcock, probably thinking her son would do it for her next time he visits. She was also worried that the hot tap at her kitchen sink was only flowing extremely slowly, but this turned out to be an almost closed isolator valve in the pipe feeding it. Opening the tap fixed the problem easily.

We spent a while discussing the beautiful weather for this time of year, and her holiday in Australia while I wrote out her invoice, which she kindly paid by debit card. We also agreed if the boiler noise persists she will take a note of what times of day it happens and I’ll call by to see if I can catch it and hear it myself.