Right,
Our boiler (put in a few years back for previous owner) has a condensate drain pipe.
It runs outside and it froze up last night, and I had to hairdryer it / poke things in the end to clear it.
Things that the idiot plumber who put it in did wrong:
1)Instructions recommend running it to an internal drain, not outside. It goes straight past the bath and sink drains, out the wall and down the outside wall to the drain.
2)Instructions say that if it goes outside, it should go to 32mm pipe and insulated if it needs it. It is 22mm pipe to the outside and not insulated.
3)Instructions say that it should have a minimum of joints, particularly in the outside bit - where it comes out, there are a total of 4 right angle connectors before it hits the vertical drop.
4)Instructions say that it should have a minimum drop of 1 in 10, and should be as steep as possible. It runs from the boiler cupboard pretty much horizontally to the outside, despite there being easily space to make a decent downward run - looking inside the pipe, the water pools for about 2-3mm on the bottom of this horizontal pipe.
So, other than clearing it every time it happens (which thank goodness seems to only be when we have sustained periods of <-5C), anyone got any ideas what I should do to fix the mess that this idiot plumber has left us with. Ideas so far:
1)Pipe lagging on the outside pipe - I can do this, and it would be cheap. Possibly in combination with removing some of the joints / bending the down pipe slightly.
2)Push up the end of the inside pipe, so it at least has a bit of drop on the pipe run. Again I can do this, just by wedging something underneath it.
3)Pay a plumber to fit it to the bath waste pipe. I can't do this because in theory it is a gas part (potentially vents gas from the boiler), so I'd need someone Gas Safe Registered to do it.
4)Pay a plumber to make it 32mm pipe on the outside bit - Again it involves modifying the gas side of the boiler, so I won't do it. I'd rather not do this, because it seems like bodging a bodge to me.
5)Ignore it. Climb up a ladder each time the boiler stops working.
Any opinions on what is the best idea?
Also, I'm guessing because it is so old (3 or 4 years I think), even though he blatantly ignored building regs & gas safety stuff etc. I can't hassle the original installer about it - useless bugger that he appears to be?
Joe
spent a lovely couple of hours up a ladder in -8 temps a couple of weekends ago defrosting and lagging ours, which sounds like it was installed by the same idiot as did yours, I used the really thick walled black lagging but woke up yesterday morning and the boiler had tripped out.
