Sing: “When the snow lay roundabout, deep & crisp & even. Brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel, when a poor man came in sight, gathering winter fu-el.”
This cold spell is now over 5 weeks old and although we all openly wish every year for a white Christmas, perhaps this year we’re secretly getting a little tired of the Big Chill, even without suffering from travel woes or something else….like your central heating boiler failing. You may be able to resort to being the poor chap in the Good King Wenceslas carol and stoke up the wood burner to keep the toes warm, but a broken central heating and hot water boiler is no laughing matter with a cruel frost outside by night & day.
These temperatures have highlighted a major problem with the Condensing Boilers that the government is keen for householders to install when replacing older models. It is true that they can be far more energy efficient (although they have to be working hard and not just ticking over to be so), but as the name suggests they do a lot of condensing and consequently produce a lot of water. And there lies the problem. Normal gas boilers have a condensate drain to allow the water vapour produced by burning the gas to safely drain away. The quantity can normally be measured in drips.
Conversely, a Condensing Boiler can produce a litre or two an hour! It releases the water in pulses and consequently a small pipe dripping down the outside wall is no longer acceptable. Really, the only way is to internally plumb the condensate drain (which should be a minimum of 22mmm) into the waste water pipe, but most installers will simply run a plastic pipe down the outside wall to a drain. The pipe has to be plastic, as the condensate is slightly acidic and will rot a copper pipe in a couple of years. Some installers run the 22mm plastic out through the house wall and straight down to the drain, others increase the size to 32 or 38mm for the external run to open the flow and therefore, HOPEFULLY, prevent it freezing.
I inspected just such an installation yesterday that was frozen solid from the drain all the way up to the top of the first floor windows where it projected from the wall. I had the boiler back running in 10 minutes, but if this cold spell is to continue, and it is only the beginning of winter and the 3rd cold winter in a row, then the problem needs resolving properly. External lagging looks terrible, but may serve as a short term solution.
Don’t get caught out…if it hasn’t happened yet, check the drain today and a have a warm house over the holidays.
Merry Christmas from YBC
