Our boots, shoes and tennis rackets were all wet. They were stored underneath the hot water tank. When the boiler man came he said that it wasn’t actually the tank that was leaking but the pipes leading to it. The pinhole leak had been created by corrosion.
Even worse was the water tank in the roof. I’ve now discovered that there’s a leak from there too. It’s caused a huge stain on the ceiling in my spare room (see photo), which is spreading – my washing up bowl and other receptacles have been put underneath to catch the water. Another plumber came this morning – he’s coming back later this week to sort out this problem.
Both the plumbers agree that I really need to get a new boiler, along with tanks and pipes. What I’m hoping is that my existing system will give me a little more time to work out what sort of boiler I want to buy.
When I moved to my house in 2004, I knew the boiler wasn’t going to last much longer, although given that it was already around 25 years old, it was, apparently, pretty efficient.
Unfortunately, my house is not on the gas mains and the boiler I have is oil fired. That means I have two main choices for replacing it – either another more efficient oil fired boiler or a biomass one, probably run with wood pellets. Another issue is that I’m planning to install solar thermal for my hot water in the not too distant future, so whatever I get has to be compatible with that.
I’ve started my research and will be giving a progress report on how I get on…
