Gasket missing

Chris10001 · Post by **Chris10001** » Fri Dec 23, 2022 7:10 am

Hello, I have 22 year old water tank boiler in a rented house. While the burner was lit yesterday I smelt a very faint smell of gas. It was confirmed it was leaking only when heating up, and yesterday the gas engineer found there was no gasket under the burner.

It could have been like this years, so I wanted to know if a boiler missing a gasket like this would always leak gas? And although in seemed to only be a small amount that couldn't be smelt from outside the boiler cupboard, could a leak like this on a long term basis cause health issues?

Thanks

bourbon · Post by **bourbon** » Fri Dec 23, 2022 11:59 am

It's dangerous. Never mind the health issues, You could be blown up! There is a reason the gasket is fitted in the first place. Get the landlord to fix ASAP, as in Now, immediately. pronto. If your landlord refuses, contact the council

Chris10001 · Post by **Chris10001** » Fri Dec 23, 2022 4:52 pm

Thankfully they are fixing it. They only found there was no gasket after investigating the leak so it's being repaired next week and is currently off and capped. The strange thing is it was serviced and gas safety checked a few months ago and no leaks or issues were detected, even though it didn't have a gasket back then. Is it possible for it not to leak gas if the gasket it missing?

chrrris · Post by **chrrris** » Fri Dec 23, 2022 5:57 pm

It's definitely possible. I've seen video of people online discovering gas pipes clipped to a wall behind kitchen units where someone had forgotten to solder an end-feed elbow. The pipe just presumably held loosely in the fitting with a dob of flux, or corrosion, and pulls straight out when disturbed. An explosion waiting to happen but amazingly, seems like they don't always leak. I'm sure I've seen a video with an unsoldered joint in a meter cabinet too.

Chris10001 · Post by **Chris10001** » Fri Dec 23, 2022 7:29 pm

Ah ok. They said it was an electrode gasket that was missing. Do you know what that does?

chrrris · Post by **chrrris** » Fri Dec 23, 2022 11:28 pm

It's not my area of knowledge at all, but I'd assume it's the gasket around the spark electrode used to ignite the boiler, and/or maybe a flame sensing electrode (that the electronics in the boiler uses to decide whether the boiler's fired up properly).

Chris10001 · Post by **Chris10001** » Sat Dec 24, 2022 11:45 am

Having spoken to the boiler company I finally have the full picture. The boiler is a powermax range 140. The gas leak was from the electrode and they have confirmed is was when looking at this they discovered there was no burner gasket, and hasn't been for years. It has passed every yearly service and gas safety check for the last few years despite unknowlingly having no gasket. I can't see how this is possible but sounds like it has been safe in the past despite the missing gasket as no carbon monoxide or gas leaks were detected during those visits. Does this sound right. Thank you for any input, I am very worried as have been living here for many years.

Razor · Post by **Razor** » Sat Dec 24, 2022 1:13 pm

I'm not enjoying posting this one so close to Xmas but...

I would be very suspicious the boiler has ever been stripped on it's annual service. Replacement of the burner gasket is mandatory on these everytime it's opened up. If it hasn't been properly serviced the tubulators will most probably be seized and likely to break if removed.

Please make sure you have a CO alarm properly located outside the boiler cupboard and make plans to get rid of it as soon as possible. Very few of these units that I come across are 100% sound and safe nowadays.

The following links aren't mine but they do reflect the industry opinion of these boilers.

https://smart-plumb.co.uk/the-powermax- ... the%20flue.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... death.html

Get a CO alarm and install it correctly today please

dewaltdisney · Post by **dewaltdisney** » Sat Dec 24, 2022 1:17 pm

My take on it is that there is probably not a gas leak there is a small chance of combustion fumes leaking through a poor seal. It would be minimal in my opinion. To give you some confidence, back in the 80's my house has a Vulcan Continental boiler which was installed when I bought the house. In those days you had a live gas pilot light flame to ignite the burn when the thermostat tripped the gas valve. When the wind blew strongly the bloody pilot light would blow out and the thermo couple cut the gas and the boiler shut down. On investigation, the little glass pilot light inspection window did not have a seal and this allowed the wind pressure to snuff the pilot. I put some fireproof sealant under the glass to boiler join and it solved the problem. The point is I had lived with the boiler like that for some time not realising that noxious fumes could be leaking in. Bare in mind that the area of leak from the small glass panel was a far greater area than your electrode so I should not worry.

DWD

Chris10001 · Post by **Chris10001** » Sat Dec 24, 2022 1:23 pm

Thank you Razor. No, I don't think it had a full strip down service like that while I have rented, only the standard. Thank you, I now have the alarms set up. It doesn't matter for the future as it's being replaced with a new one. My concern is with past exposure to co, even a low level, but they have confirmed every year for the past few years it passed it's service and gas safety check, which were both done and check for leaks etc, so I assume it was safe in the past but I'm lucky this has been discovered now and dealt with. That article is horrible :(

Chris10001 · Post by **Chris10001** » Sat Dec 24, 2022 1:26 pm

Hi DWD. Thank you for your reply. They told me on the day it was the electrode gasket, but turns out it was the burner gasket. Wow, sounds like they were much less safe in the past.

dewaltdisney · Post by **dewaltdisney** » Sat Dec 24, 2022 2:11 pm

Yes, things were very basic back then and of course, there was not the overhype on gas safety there is now. I used to service my own boiler and removed the flue cover plates to clean out any soot, there was never much although you did get crap blow in through the much larger balanced flue outlets. I replaced my thermo couple a few times as these were consumable to a certain extent. Boilers are now far more complicated and you do have to have someone who knows what they are doing and has the ticket to carry out work. Even so, there have been a number of devastating domestic gas explosions recently and I suspect unqualified tinkering to be the cause. But it is not the gas side so much to worry about, you can smell a leak. It is the combustion products that are more lethal as they are hard to detect without a monitor. I knew a victim of the old Spanish water heaters that were not room sealed. She died of monoxide poisoning unaware of the problem. Also I recall a terrible tragedy back in the days when I worked at the Gas Board as a lad during the natural gas conversion. Natural gas needs more air to burn and airflow vents in windows were installed in rooms that had gas appliances. This made the rooms bloody cold in winter and the vents often got blocked up by the residents. In this case the bathroom had a big Ascot water heater that drew air from the house and had a flue for the exhaust. Because it was a bathroom they had blocked the airflow vent and with the Ascot running the young girl was in the bath and died from monoxide as all the air in the room got burned off. I still recall her name to this day. You are miles away from an event like that.

DWD

Someone-Else · Post by **Someone-Else** » Sat Dec 24, 2022 2:44 pm

dewaltdisney wrote: ↑Sat Dec 24, 2022 2:11 pmIn this case the bathroom had a big Ascot water heater that drew air from the house and had a flue for the exhaust

Would that have been a big, tallish round thing, and was lit by a separate pipe that you turned on and ignited and swivelled back in to ignite the now flowing gas? If so, we had one of them in our bathroom.

Oh, sorry, but it's Carbon Monoxide, not monoxide, since you can also have di-hydrogen monoxide

Not intentionally being pedantic, just that with chemical names you must be carful.

dewaltdisney · Post by **dewaltdisney** » Sat Dec 24, 2022 3:23 pm

This image gives a better idea https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1900639. Yes, typing laziness it should have been Carbon Monoxide but if I had written CO it would have been less clear.

DWD

toolbox · Post by **toolbox** » Sat Dec 24, 2022 4:13 pm

chrrris wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 5:57 pm It's definitely possible. I've seen video of people online discovering gas pipes clipped to a wall behind kitchen units where someone had forgotten to solder an end-feed elbow. The pipe just presumably held loosely in the fitting with a dob of flux, or corrosion, and pulls straight out when disturbed. An explosion waiting to happen but amazingly, seems like they don't always leak. I'm sure I've seen a video with an unsoldered joint in a meter cabinet too.

Yep had exactly that myself just the flux holding the gas in for years!