Bad smell from Gulfstream A-Class!

Hi

I have a Gulfstream A-Class system installed in my three and a half year old house. Everything was fine with it until last week when I returned home from a weekend away to the upstairs of my house stinking of mold! Opening the airing cupboard door I discovered the source was the Gulfstream and, after a quick check for obvious leaks and damp patches (none found), I called out a British Gas engineer. He took off the front cover, found no leaks and nothing wrong with it (indeed everything looked pristine inside to me), he even checked all the pipe and flue connections that go up into the loft and found nothing untoward. The call out cost me £80 and I still have a boiler that stinks of mold!! Please help! Has anyone else had this issue? What could it be? I am loathed to call out another engineer if I am going to be told again that all looks well :-(

As I said, the system works perfectly - nice warm house in the winter and plenty of hot water (too hot sometimes!) at good pressure. After the engineer left I put both the HW and CH on, ran several baths and have been using more HW than usual ever since to see if getting the water pumping round the system would have an effect (sorry I'm not technically minded enough to know if this would work anyway!) - all to no avail. Things aren't too bad while the weather's good and I can have all the windows open, but I'm dreading the winter if I can't get to the bottom of this now.

Thanks

Mike

Good morning Mike

The Gulfstream shouldn't give off any smell whatsoever, as you already know. To my knowledge, there are no inherent problems that wouold cause a smell from this unit, nor have we had problems of smells from the Gulfstream either. However, since there is a smell, then you can break it down to one of the two areas listed below.

If the smell is coming from the Gulfstream then it can be narrowed down to one of three areas;
1] An internal water leak from the unit, in which case you would require someone with technical knowledge of the unit. We cover the Midlands, but if you are outside our area use the "find an engineer" section on this website.
2] A gas escape coming from the unit, in which case call Transco for a free of charge visit on 0800 111 999 (the gas emergency service) as soon as possible to get it checked, although I would have expected the British Gas engineer to have carried out a test from the gas meter to eliminate this.
3] An escape of fumes (the Gulfstream has a built in boiler after all), in which case contact Transco on 0800 111 999 to get it checked.

If the smell is not coming from the Gulfstream:
1] There is the possibility that the smell is nothing whatsoever to do with the Gulfstream, as it could simply be a drain problem or similar that is being convected around by the heat from the Gulfstream.

Hi can you clarify does the system have a pressure gauge fitted to the front or is it a model with a plastic header tank ?

if it doesnt have a pressure gauge check the header tank by lifting the lid and looking for bacterial growth you will know what it looks like when you see it .