Discovered a flue leak...

Hello all

This all started last weekend when I had a shower first thing and the house electricity tripped out as soon as the boiler kicked in. After a little investigation I discovered moisture around the boiler pump that had caused it to short out to earth. This was disconnected and allowed to dry and now works fine. I initially couldn't find the source of the water leak (couple of drips per second) and had to travel away, so the system hasn't been used since then.

Now I have found the leak. I have somehow got a pinhole sized leak coming from the lower flue duct at the bottom of the gas/air heat exchanger. Pictures can be seen here. I am using a mirror on a stick to take the photo so the hole is actually not visible from the front:

https://imgur.com/a/DC6wh

Don't fear - the system is shown with the condensate trap removed but it has not been run like this. It was removed to get better access to where I thought the source of the leak was.

Obviously, now I have identified it's a problem on the gas/flue side of things I plan to engage a Gas Safe engineer ASAP to sort out properly, and I am only going to run it on electricity for the time being (it works fine).

How big a job is it to remove/replace/repair the lower duct? If this was not a gas related part I would perhaps think about filling the hole with metal repair putty, but am hesitant to bodge a flue duct in this way, if it's even allowed.

What would you do? I know the standard advice is to ditch the whole boiler completely, but I am not at that point yet. The gulfstream and I have a friendship going way back now

See how much the parts are.
And get a gas safe guy to fit them
Mike

Best to install a CO detector to guard against this problem. I recommend the Honeywell H450EN (6 year guarantee, battery operated) which you can get for around £16+ VAT and very easy to install with just one pin to knock in.