Gledhill Systemate III

This is a copy of an E-mail sent to the Managing Agent for our flat and the contents are self explanatory any and all help and guidance will be appreciated.

I turned the boiler on again last night to see if I could duplicate what happened earlier in the day and after an initial normal start it ran for several minutes fairly quietly and then all hell broke loose again in the airing cupboard.

The noise of banging etc. was very loud but it was not easy to locate the source of the noise and to be safe I immediately turned everything off again. The boiler does make a lot of noise in general use similar to surface boiling (kettling) and clicks and bangs as the controls cut in and out but this was not the cause of all the worry yesterday. From memory the closed loop side of these systems were supposed to be treated with inhibitor and this monitored and topped up as necessary. Has this ever been done?

This morning I thought I would try turning it all on again in a more awake state and the following are the things I noted at the time, which is information that may be of use to your boiler man.

1. The pressure gauge was on zero when I first looked this morning and the red ‘warning arrow’ is set at 2.0 bar. As time has gone on the gauge has moved and is showing a more or less constant 0.2 bar.

2. The top pump was very hot and apparently runs all of the time even when the boiler is turned off. The lower pump was cold.

3. As the boiler cut in and out water vented into the top tank and this made a quite a noise as it entered the tank. This may have contributed to the loud noise from the airing cupboard last night if it vented when at a very high temperature. The water level is correct in the top tank (level with ridge).

4. We did notice air travelling through the radiators a few days ago but this was, apparently as not noticed before, a one off and seems to have corrected itself. All the radiators that we have on a normal room temperature are hot throughout and do not have cold pockets.

5. At the time of writing this, all seems to be quiet (well as noisy as it usually is) and normal, but as I am about to leave for the office I am going to turn the heating and the boiler off again while the flat is empty.

6. Two sites that are worth looking at and for information for your boiler man and therefore could be quite useful to him are as follows:
www.systemate-repairs.co.uk and
www.gledhill.net/pdfmanuals/.../Systemate%20III%20User.pdf

Although everything appears to have reverted to normal I would still like the system checked over and given a clean bill of health. The information on the storage tank is as follows:

Gledhill Systemate III
1 x 2 AS 381
Model 5M 144 hwh
Serial number 26698
Max working head 6m
Storage capacity 6 litre (?)
Specification code 910
Origin SW
Date of test 05/10/2000

1. The pressure gauge was on zero when I first looked this morning and the red ‘warning arrow’ is set at 2.0 bar. As time has gone on the gauge has moved and is showing a more or less constant 0.2 bar.

that's your problem. Refill the tank to 1.5 bar pressure. then bleed all the radiators (topping up the tank if necessary)