Having issues with our oil-fired boiler and could do with a recommendation for a decent trouble-shooting forum or site. or someone on here who might be able to help?

Thanks in advance....

Reubs(coupedummy) is a heating expert Stan - worth a pm at least, and preferably an email?

Thanks Steve I did wonder if maybe he could give me some pointers. Bloody typical that these things pack up in cold weather! We use it all year round for heating and hot water and occasionally have had issues with it over the past 11yrs but today's problems look terminal.....

Feel free to pm me stan..Not my fortay but can help you through it..Simple design essentially. Pm make and model boiler and model of burner and exact problem

Thanks Reubs, I'll have to do some digging for the info and for the exact symptoms but the worst two, before we switched it off were steam issuing in massive amounts from the burner exhaust (never had that before!) and a *very* loud knocking/banging noise coming from the boiler itself. I suspect water ingestion into the burner system. Problem is it's an old Trianco, who as you know are no longer in business and therefore parts are going to be hard/impossible to find

this trianco
http://www.trianco.co.uk/

Id get someone to inspect the burner itself..Possibly its burner its correct mixture hence smoke. Not enough air,or oil starved etc..These work on oil through and injector thats lit which in turn heats the exchanger.
No major science but hopefully its something simple.

When was it serviced last? Likely get an oftec trained engineer in to service and investigate.
On a service the heat exchanger should be inspected and clean,probes cleaned and replaced if required,nozzle replaced ideally or cleaned and air mixture checked. Without knowing your boiler unsure how exactly to advise you but out of measure i would go through them all.

As there is no official requirement to be qualified to work on oil boilers,look at the technical manual if you have one and confident to do so.
I will help as much as possible.

If the heat exchanger had split you would see water on the floor for sure.
If its the problem with just the burner itself on many floor stood oil boilers the burner can often be replaced by another equivilant model from another brand.

Which oil did you put in it stan and have you been checking it weekly?

You'd better watch this thread doesn't get locked

Banging etc..if there actually water in the boiler?is it presurissed or fed from a tank?

Very interesting and helpful find Reubs! 14mths ago, the last time the boiler threw a hissy fit (leak in the tank) the website was no longer available and any news stories I could find about them were that they'd gone into administration. Their phones didn't work etc, so it appeared we were up a creek without a paddle!

Great to know they are now back up and running.

The boiler gets a basic service on an ad hoc basis, in other words, not very often.

It is a floor standing model, in the garage, no major leak but there is seepage from the diverter valve, and the radiators were beginning to knock over the past few days. My suspicion is that the leak has been there for a while and has emptied the main tank for the heating system as I can still get hot water, albeit with the tremendous knocking/banging, although I've switched off the boiler so as to avoid damage.

My plan is to cold pressurise the system, bleed the air from the system, having first checked that the diverter valve issue is something simple like it needs nipped up at the gland, and then refill once bled. Then I'll try firing it back up.......if it exhibits the same symptoms I'll call in an engineer (currently not well enough to do much more by myself) and bite the bullet of having to pay someone else to do something so simple

Thanks for your help and that link!

Oh, and this is the manual for the boiler; Eurostar Combi

And the verdict is in, and it's a fail!

Pressurised the vessel, noticed it wouldn't hold 2bar but *hoped* this was just air self-bleeding (always the optimist me! ) and started bleeding the upstairs rads, only to discover they were all empty!

By the time I'd got them all bled I went back into the garage (where the boiler lived) and it's flooding! The leak is on the main tank, where the burner inserts. Access, thanks to Mrs Stanusing *my* garage as a dumping ground is bloody awful and I'll have to wait for her to clear up her mess over the next couple of weekends.....

Have to say it's not looking good

Thanks for your help anyway Reuben, it was much appreciated, now I'll have to sell Project Jigsaw for a new boiler

Knocking and bangs as no water in the system.kettling as such..
Try and identify exactly where its from..no a joint et ..dffo from the heat exchanger?

Yeah the kettling was coming from the main tank where the leak is. It's a twin tank arrangement in this boiler; it has a second (storage)tank for domestic hot water which contains the heat heat exchanger but it isn't that second tank that is leaking (this time, it sprang a leak the last time it failed!).

It'll need stripped down a bit to locate the leak, then hope the parts are available.....

Drag the burner out.Presurise it a little and see where it springs from. If it is the main heat exchanger id scrap it,i will see avaliabilty of these bits still from our stockists.

Magic, thanks for your help Reubens!