Member postings for fizzy

One man band but with 20 years experience.......obviously not with boilers!

Interestingly the Australian Fed who produce a far more detailed set of regulations than the UK conducted testing with full flange, hardly any flange and no flange at all (simple yube with end plates). All three were perfect under test conditions with no distortion between them. They published their findings...ive got it somewhere! My boilers employ a minimum of 3 x thickness to flange ratio and are turned to fit. Ive never had a boiler returned for a defective joint and ive made hundreds.

Came home to no hot water. Calls qualidied, experienced plumber who diagnoses issue before hes even been to see the boiler. Orders new part, arrives and fits it...nothing. Then does a bit of investigating and finds no spark - need to order new coil pack and it will be expensive! These coil packs are almost identical to those fitted to modern cars which operate under severe conditions and rarely fail, whilst ours has produced maybe 100 sparks in its lifetime. Logic tells me its not likely to be the coil especially as a failed spark wouldnt have caused a shutdown in the first place -I put meter on input and zero volts, so its never likely to work. Have a quick look at pcb and its propper toast so a new pcb is needed (burned beyond repair), Now given that ive never so much as looked at a domestic boiler in detail before and that it took me less than 5 minutes to diagnose the problem how are people like my so called plumber allowed out of the house? He will of course want paying for the call out and replacing a perfectly working part and if I hadnt taken a look myself would today be fitting an even more expensive part to replace the fully functioning one....would he even have got to the pcb? Am I obliged to pay for something which in no way fixed the problem? I despair, I really do. Told him all this, he advises a new boiler at £1800....alternative is new pcb at over £200 which comes with a 1 year warranty..... A quick google and I can get a recon unit with 12 month warranty for £34....

"I don't understand JD's assertion that modifying a published and proven design is not allowed".....thats because you are most likely not aware of the UK Boiler Regulations. You can do what you like in your own garden but if you want to join a club/get insurance/take it out in public then the rules have to be followed.

i second 3d printed....but how big?

The problem your having with the sf24 is that the copper is not getting hot enough. I often have parts of a boiler going dull red when using sf55 and this can melt as much as 200 degrees lower than 24, so if I were to need to up the temperature by another 200 degrees I doubt there would be any flux left (it takes quite a while to get a boiler to that temperature and the flux doesnt last forever). I only ever use one temp of solder regardless of the size and type of boiler and have yet to have a single joint fail due to this. Brian is correct re getting the solder to stay in place - exactly what I do. Just beware that there is a lot of very bad advice as well as good out there.

measured od at 26mm which i think makes it 3/4 bsp....

well im none the wiser...just read that it might relate to NPT.....who knows?

Sure enough I put the wrong link in.....but the words are exactly taken from the link I should have put up......apologies all round.

Im looking at a water pump on ebay **LINK**

the item describes the thread coupling as 2E - hose 20: 2M screw 20 (3/4). Whilst I can make assumptions as to what the thread is can someone in the know please tell exactly what this means in easy speak? Thanks.

Thanks..in burnley solar is a complete non starter, indeed rain power would produce more output. I have thought about converting an old gas boiler, no health risks as outdoors, stock leccy heater is 2kw and raises temp roughly 2 deg C per hour....and seems to cost a bomb.

anyone?

Our hot tub easts through electric at a scary rate - nothing wrong with tub or heater its just how it is. I got to thinking that I could easily make a stand alone heating unit for it running off propane (We use a lot of propane as it is). Then I tried to determine if it should be a mono (as in flash steam) type heater or a multi cross tube type heater...and I cant get any decent answers. Obviously it will be designed and built along boiler type materials so it can be well insulated, it only has to heat the water to a max 45deg C, 800 litres over about 8 hours. Whilst I have an abundence of copper tube and small bore pipe I would like to keep it as simple as possible. I will make the burners as standard PSB boiler burners as they put out good heat and dont use much gas (they will have to be tweaked to run on Propane though). Any suggestiond?

We at Pendle Steam Boilers use Hermes for almost all of our shipping, the majority of which goes over seas. So far they have managed to lose a £600 boiler but otherwise have delivered everything safely. You cant beat them on price and they paid my claim with no hassle. The good part is they have customer service who you can get in touch with unlike most of the other budget carriers. One gripe is that they will periodically claim your parcel was over weight and charge you extra...once bitteb and all that.....we now take a photo of the item on the scales! Last week they tried it again but soon retracted the invouce when shown the photo.

You will have no problems using Colphos (90), it contains almost the same lead as LG2 but was created with machinability as its focus. It silver solders without any issues.

Nice to know someone actually reads my posts! They might not be what people want to hear (read) but there is no armchair in my workshop...couple of three leg stools somewhere......Robert you should have little problem with the welding, place most likely to fail is the start stop on the foundation ring. I dont know why but this is the only weld which ever gave me grief, and not just once.

Contrary to popular belief there is no one grade for making a model boiler. Long ago there was a product classed as Boiler Plate but that was a long time ago. Whilst some of the grades are more preferable to others mostly in relation to their oxidation propertied (rusting) a certified low carbon steel will pass all the tests for models. The steel has to have its Mill Certs when purchased, these will tell you and your boiler inspecter only that the material originated from a trusted supplier and was tested and offers no indication as to accepted uses. The steel supplied to you will have no marking to tie it to the cert! There is no pass, fail or for that matter anything you can determine from Mill Certs, but if there were ever to be a problem you have traceability back to the supplier. You can weld the boiler without being coded, the UK regs state that samples be made availible for testing but dont say which test...and there are lots!. One way to prove suitability is to have your completed boiler fully Non Destructive Tested and certified by an authorised NDT Weld test house. After you have jumped through these and other hoops let me add a word of caution...unless you are a very, very experienced welder (Im talking professional level for many years) your efforts will be a waste of time and your boiler will leak. Its one thing to weld two pieces of metal together but welding a water tight pressure vessel is a million miles away....in the opposite direction. I have welded many boilers (alas not certified any more) and used to weld for BNFL, and on accasion some of my welds failed test, requiring many hours of corrective action until the man with the scope say yes. I now only make copper boilers! Good luck with your build. The last time I tried to obtain suitable tube for a steel boiler I was unable to. If you want to buy a 3m length I can point you in the right direction but other than that I know of no one who is willing to sell any.

Has anyone had first hand experience of building their models?

Strange thing is that a couple of days ago, in Burnley I commented to my dear wife that it sounded like Grimsby Docks (not that ive ever been there but someone did once!). Ruddy shite hawke everywhere, never noticed them before.

I bought these a while back for 99 pence...cant go wrong **LINK**