My name’s Allen Hart and in today’s video, I’m going to show you some badly installed Ideal Logic combi boilers. I’m going to show you why you should pay more to have your boiler installed correctly. I’m also going to show you some good quality Ideal Logic combi boiler installs as well.
System Tests – Lots of Faults
To help the trainees here, I’m going to try and go through as many of the faults as I can see. This is in a loft; it’s in an unheated area and it’s an Ideal Logic 24 kilowatt combi boiler. We’ve also got the benchmark log book to refer to. I’m just going to test the inlet pressure on the gas. Just have a look at the blow pipe there. The PRV on this has been soldered. Now that should be a compressor fitting. It shouldn’t be soldered in an Ideal Logic. Also, the pressure gauge on an Ideal Logic, it should be on the floor, not the return, so it should be on the left-hand pipe.
If you have a look at the inlet pressure now on the gas, just going to put it upon to high, its on low, I’m going to put it up onto high. It’s on high now. Okay, so the pressure has gone all the way down to 14.5 millibar, 14.3 millibar. If we refer to the benchmark document, when this boiler was installed on the top right-hand side there in heating mode, allegedly it was a 20.1 millibar for the central heating and for the hot water, it was at 19.9 millibar and we’re getting between 14.2 and 14.3 millibar.
And when we go to the gas metre and we test the working pressure at the gas metre, it’s at 22 millibar. So we’ve got, what’s that? Seven and a half millibar drop over the installation. What that tells us is we’ve got an issue with the gas pipe sizing. We should only have one millibar drop maximum over the installation for pipe sizing. That’s something for you to check and if you’re a trainee, this is what happens if you don’t instal the pipe sizing correctly. This has got a lot of 15 millimetre pipe and the boiler’s up in the loft. And yeah, it’s just wrong. It should be 22 millimetre pipe, most of it, and then you might get away with a little bit of 15. But just shows how important is to size the pipe work correctly.
Always make sure that you read the installation instructions for the boiler. And this part of it tells you about the gas supply and I think people get confused here because they see that the Logic will work as low as 14 millibar, but the regulations clearly say you’re allowed one millibar over the installation. Please, check and read the installation instructions correctly.
I did say this was an Ideal Logic combi boiler, it’s actually an i-mini combi boiler, but it’s the same boiler really. Ideal just put different badges on and if we look at the common set pipe, we can see it goes through the wall in small pipe, in overflow, so clearly that’s not installed correctly either. Also, the pipe should be lagged, so it should be big pipe unlagged. Again, refer to the installation instructions.
Lots and lots of faults on that one. There’s a few that I’ve not mentioned. One is the flue, but what I’m going to do is I’m going to show you some different pictures and videos of flues as well, as well as some good quality instals as well to show you what you should be expecting when you get a new boiler installed and as a customer, why should you be bothered?
Well, the main reason why you should be bothered is that if the boiler’s not installed correctly, then there’s a good chance you’re not going to have no boiler warranty. You might have a piece of paper that says you’ve got a 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 50 year warranty, whatever it says, but if the boilers not installed correctly, then there’s a good chance that the manufacturers will not honour that warranty. And rightly so, in my opinion. A lot of these faults, a lot of boiler faults are down to how they’re installed. If the bile is installed correctly, flues correctly, then there’s a good chance it’s going to last a long time.
What I’m going to do now is I’m going to show you some other boiler faults, and then I’m going to show you some good quality instals as well. Show you what you should expect when you have a new boiler installed.
Ideal Logic Installation Fail
This next one is an Ideal Logic and it’s the flue. Now it’s very, very clear in the installation instructions on an Ideal Logic that you can not have any white on show. If you see the actual, where the white joins to the black part of the plastic, that actually needs to be sealed. This is how it should be installed on an Ideal Logic. No white on show, but please refer to the installation instructions.
This boiler’s got a leaking flue seal. What’s happened, as the boiler’s been burning all the water, all the [inaudible 00:06:31] has been coming back down into the boiler, and it’s obviously made a bit of a mess of the boiler, as you can see there’s rust on it. Generally, it’s just in a bad condition.
We’ve just got a few bad, or badly installed, jobs there. If you’ve got any pictures or videos of Ideal Logic’s that’s been installed, then I’ll add my number below and you can send me them on WhatsApp and I’ll try and do a video and I’ll try and answer any of the questions that you have.
What I’m going to do now, I’ll do a video or I’ll continue this video and I’ll show you some good quality installations and what they should be looking like. Lets go and have a look.
The most important thing of all, in my opinion, is actually how clean the system is. You wouldn’t put old engine oil in a new car so why would you expect a brand new boiler to work when you got a lot of sludge and muck in it. It’s really important that you flush the radiators out. I installed this Ideal Logic about five or six years ago, I believe. If we have a look there, you can see it’s got the compression socket on the PRV pipe. Also, we fully flushed the heating system and afterwards we added some Fernox protector to make sure that the system stays clean.
A Good Installation
Today we’re working in Tinshill in Leeds. We’re taking out an old back boiler. We’re going to instal an Ideal Logic plus. We’re just going to drain the system down now and the system is very, very mucky. We’re going to flush this system out. We’re going to put some Fernox F5 in. I’m going to use our Magnacleanse. I’m going to flush all the system. We don’t want all that muck going through the new boiler. We’ve removed the old boiler now. We’re just going to [inaudible 00:09:11] the hole now for the flue for the boiler. We’re just going to fit the bracket to the wall. Just level it up, make sure it’s all nice and level. We’ve got the boiler on the wall now. We’ve got Fernox filter on here just to protect it afterwards.
We’re just going to commission the boiler now, set on low on high gas rate. We’ve just got as well samples here. We’ve got the sample now. This is the nice clean sample. And then we’ve got the sample before. We’re just going to add as Fernox F1 now to protect the system. The system stays healthy and that’s it. We’re all done.
This is an Ideal Logic install from Love Your Plumber. I went to this install with John. First of all, protect all carpets. He’s now taking boiler out. We have done a full video on this from start to finish. If you just search for Love Your Plumber, and then you’ll find it in my videos. Just taking all the old boiler out. He just put in a board, just to line the cupboard out, just so he can get all his clips nice and neat and just make a nice tidy job. Just got his boiler template, really good on Ideal Logic’s because it shows you all where your clips need to go and stuff. Just levelling all his pipes up. Levelling all his clips up, sorry. Put all his clips on now. As you can see that pipework, lovely, lovely pipework. He’s a very, very good installer, is John. He does some nice soldering there as well.
Have a look at this front display. The boiler’s on now and central heating’s calling for heat. The display on this is very, very nice. It’s got a hot water preheat. So, that’s turned off. Then you can turn it on by pressing that button. Turn it off again. Then you got your menu. Click on your menu. And then you can scroll down from this.
Good vs Bad Installations
That’s just a few Ideal Logic boiler installations. I hope you can see the difference and I hope you can see the difference in a bad boiler installation and a good boiler installation. If you’ve got any pictures or videos, if you want to send me some of them on WhatsApp, then that’s great. I’ll add my number below. Yeah and as always, if you’ve got any questions, ask below. And the difference between a good install and a bad install. If you install a boiler correctly, then you’ve got much better chance of the boiler being reliable and lasting for longer. And also then you must get the boiler serviced as well. It’s very important that you have the boiler serviced. For instance, if the boiler’s got a 10 year warranty and you have it serviced and you have it services correctly, then you’ve got total peace of mind and if anything does go wrong with the boiler, then the manufacturers will cover it under warranty.
You’re not going to have any more costly repairs but as I say, it’s important that you have the boiler installed correctly to start with.
You’re not going to have any more costly repairs but as I say, it’s important that you have the boiler installed correctly to start with