Given the weather the other day, it was a surprise to get a call regarding a boiler breakdown for one of the local shops right in the center of Bournemouth. The shop owner said they were trying to wash up in the back, but their boiler seemed to be playing up and they were struggling to get any hot water flowing through.
I popped round about midday to have a look and it seemed that their Greenstar 40 cdi classic had been left without a service for way too long and they had a huge build-up of sediment and sludge which was preventing the boiler from functioning properly. This is typically why I insist on all my customers getting an annual boiler service, to make sure everything is ticking over correctly and so they avoid having to get an installation when the boiler could have been functioning for many more years to come. The system was so dirty that the pipe had probably reduced to about 10mm from an original 22mm. On top of this the boiler pressure seemed to be faily low, around 1.0 bar, which I then worked out was due to a leak, caused by corrosion.
After a long conversation with the customer, we decided that installing a new combi boiler was the best decision as this boiler would cost a lot to get back functioning, would likely only last 2-5 more years and be more costly on energy bills. I need to head back in a few days to install their new Viessmann, but above are the images from the boiler inspection and should be a warning to anyone looking to avoid a boiler service!
