Solid fuel heating system problem

[chook1976]

I could really do with some advice.

Bit of back history, I have a trianco thorncliffe solid fuel room heater it has a back boiler, my dad put the system in just over 30 years ago, everything was bought from the then local fire shop, installed with lots of advice from them, the system has worked perfectly well for year's, odd problems hear and there.

Recently the over flow pipe started leaking and my intentions were once the fire was shut down for the summer to have both expansion tanks replaced and the pump to a newer model, about a month ago, the back boiler started hissing and the pump started running hot and making a noise, after checking everything found their was a drop in water pressure going to the coil in the hot water tank, the heat dump rad was still hot, but others had gone off, the over flow had also stopped leaking, once fire was out, water pressure was back up, pump no longer noisy and over flow is leaking again, this has all happened twice so far, same thing weeks apart, I was told by a few I had to get someone out who was hetas registered, I did contact someone, who point blank said he wouldn't even bother looking at the system and would just condem it, did explain to him that ithe system has all ran fine for 30 years and tbh my intentions are to eventually get the whole system overhauled, new pipes, rads etc, but he refused to listen, there's no way at the moment I could afford to have it condemned, so now worried about contacting someone else.


Sorry its a bit long.

Jane

 

[chook1976]

Good work. There is often no substitute for time and patience.

Thanks, think I just need the confidence to get in there and have a look, the loft isn't an easy place to get in and out of, as you have to climb between two major beams as you get torough the hatch and there's not a lot of room.


Everything still seems to be working fine today and have noticed rads arnt getting as hot as they were before, they are hot, but before it was like they were boiling and you could hardly touch them, they didn't need bleeding at all yesterday.

I did bleed the pump, as it's still rattling a bit, I've a feeling the pump is probably on its way out, so will get the neone sooner rather than later.