Leaking boiler - help! All aspects of plumbing questions and answers, help, tips and information

[tonyade]

Hello guys. Bit of a DIY novice here, so please be gentle with me.

In a nutshell, our boiler is leaking, pressure is down, water is slow to come out of taps (in the upstairs rooms), not much water in some of the radiators.

Checked the boiler itself and noticed water slowly dripping out of one of the pipes at the bottom of the boiler. It's a capped-off pipe with a screw, which I'm presuming allows you to open the pipe now and again. (Would attach a picture to this post, but I'm not sure how to do it - sorry). Someone has put some mastic (I think) around the screw base, but it's not stopping the drips. Any idea what I can do? Get a new screw? Put more mastic around it?

Thanks in advance.

[rosebery]

A pic would really help as such is always worth a thousand words. Upload it to one of the pic hosting sites and paste the resultant link here.

Having said that though it sorta sounds as though you need a plumber.

Cheers

[htg engineer]

'A capped off pipe with a screw'

sounds like a ballofix/service valve, that could be used re-pressurising the system, this would not make the system pressure drop - unless the ballofix has been fitted to the central heating circuit and the non-return valve fitted to the mains cold water.

Where is it leaking from ?
the 15mm cap ?
the 15mm nut ?
or the screw slot ?

Is the screw slot inline with the pipe or is it across the pipe ?
inline is open/water on, across the pipe is off. Make sure it is in the off position and see if the leak stops.

Also determine if it on the central heating or the cold water, if it's on the cold water that means you have anotgher leak somewhere that is causing the system pressure to fall.

htg