Apex Plumbing and Heating

20/10/2022

If you live in a hard water area, your Megaflo or Unvented Cylinder may suffer from limescale build-up inside the cylinder.
Once the limescale accumulates beyond a certain level, the immersion element will fail, or the high-level safety thermostat to trip out.
If this situation arises, the cylinder needs to be descaled before replacing the immersion heater or thermostat (or both). Without the descale, the same problems will return within weeks.
The limescale will only be evident once the immersion heater is removed, but if it is excessive then it needs to be cleared.
If limescale is the culprit (though not always the case), then it needs to be cleared out. Otherwise, it's false economy to just replace the immersion heater.

06/04/2021

Heatrae Sadia Coral Aquanox open vent thermal store. Installed 8 years ago, never serviced, but still running well. Forgot how good they are!

An excellent option (albeit expensive!) for when a Megaflo or unvented cylinder is not possible (in this instance, due to safety discharge pipe).

02/11/2020

We're regularly changing these Megaflo valves.

Not normally leaking so much, but internally they will have corroded and completely disintegrated!

Symptoms are POOR flow and further degradation in performance. Eventually, a complete failure of the valve. Then NO WATER!🙁

Unbeknown to many homeowners, Megaflo along with other unvented Cylinders, should be serviced annually!

19/10/2020

Still extremely busy servicing and repairing Megaflo systems.
Some severely neglected ones (see photos), but often a simple repair puts things right🙂.

Biggest surprise was a 20 year old Megaflo. Installed and annually serviced by the same company, until recent redundancies due to COVID-19.

We were called to carry out a routine service. Then quickly realise one of the SAFETY valves is not working! On closer inspection it's clear it would NEVER have worked😱. The pipes are in the wrong placepiped-up incorrectly!

It's frightening that a supposedly qualified engineer never picked this up! It's an extremely basic check to ensure all the safety valves are present and WORKING.

After draining the cylinder and reconfiguring the pipe work, all is good👍.

It works exactly as it did before. Same hot water. Same pressure and same flow rates.
The big difference is knowing that in an error condition it will fail safe. As designed!

10/04/2020

21/02/2020

Dumbfounded 😱 by the state of this unvented cylinder! Only 6/7 years old, but clearly been leaking from virtually every possible connection! NOTE: NOT INSTALLED BY US!

Now dried up and encased in huge amounts of CaCO3 (limescale)!

Other than that...all working well🙂🤞

18/02/2020

https://aphplus.co.uk/in-search-of-the-right-plumber/🤔

plumber noun– a person who fits and repairs the pipes, fittings, and other apparatus of water supply, sanitation, or heating systems. The generic title of plumber covers an enormous range of tasks. From fixing a dripping tap to installing a Read more…

16/11/2019

Sealed heating systems.

If your external expansion vessel has a brass fitting similar to this, then be forever grateful to the installer!

The expansion vessel is an essential part of any sealed heating system, and unfortunately, too many heating engineers simply overlook this.
It should be checked annually, and repressurised where necessary.

With this valve, the whole testing procedure takes less than 5 minutes. Without it? Potentially several hours...that's why it often doesn't get checked!

Most engineers don't install these valves. Is it because they don't appreciate it's function, or purely for cost savings? It doesn't make sense!

We ALWAYS install these valves. For the sake of £20, it's false economy not to!

05/11/2019

Ever wondered what's inside that expensive unassuming white box on the wall?

05/11/2019

Always a pleasure servicing our own boiler and Megaflo installations.
Installed to the highest standards, together with careful forethought to future routine maintenance, ensures we can work methodically and efficiently.

Coincidentally, both these installations are Worcester CDi boilers with Megaflo unvented cylinders, installed about 5 years ago.