A frozen boiler condensate pipe is far from Ideal. But if you have an Ideal, here's how you can fix for free - that's Ideal.
A condensate pipe is an external waste disposal pipe allowing your condensing boiler to expel small amounts of excess, slightly acidic water into a outside drain. During the winter, the condensate pipe of your Ideal boiler may well freeze when temperatures get to around 0° Celsius and below.
To the totally nude eye, you’d be hard pressed to tell if your condense is frozen. Fortunately, boilers communicate with us through the medium of simplistic, but made up codes.
Frozen Ideal fault codes
Fault code LF on Ideal Isar, Mexico, Icos, Esprit, Esprit 2 & Ideal Istor
Fault code L2 on Ideal Logic, Logic Heat, Logic system
Fault code F2 on Ideal Logic, Logic Heat, Logic system
Boiler producing a bubbling sound
Boiler producing a gurgling sound
Boiler is shutting down upon start up
If your Ideal boiler is displaying one or more of the above symptoms during a particularly cold period of weather, here are some simple steps to get it back up and running again.
If you suspect your Ideal condensate pipe is frozen. Do not repeat your attempts to switch the boiler on or demand water from your system until the problem is rectified.
1. Locate the external condensate pipe area
Before you can attempt to thaw out the frozen area, you'll need to make sure you've located the condensate pipe outside.
With an Ideal boiler, this is most likely going to be the thin, white plastic pipe that exits your house by the wall nearest to the boiler - note that the pipe won't necessarily be white.
If you're not at all confident in locating or identifying this pipe then you should have a heating engineer conduct this for you.
2. Apply generous amounts of hot water
Once you're confident you've located the outside section of your Ideal condensate pipe, apply hot water to the entirety of the pipe. Water between 60-70° would be ideal.
3. Apply a hot water bottle
If you have a hot water bottle to hand, we recommend applying one after you've already poured hot water on to the condensate pipe. After filling the hot water bottle with boiling water from the kettle, hold or secure the hot water bottle against the pipe for as long as it remains warm.
Applying the hot water bottle in addition to having poured hot water on it will greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to thaw out.
4. Wrap and insulate the pipe
In very cold temperatures, wrapping the pipe will not be enough to unfreeze it alone but we highly recommend applying wrapping as a preventative measure that will help to prevent re-freezing. It's best to this immediately after unfreezing your Ideal's condensate pipe.
The pipe can be wrapped in any insulating materials you have to hand - several cloths or old clothes, however, most good DIY stores will sell specific insulation that's designed to comfortably wrap around condensate pipes and provide more comprehensive insulation.
What to do after you've thawed out the frost
After you're happy that the condensate pipe of your Ideal boiler has been thawed out and applied insulating wrapping to prevent further freezing, you're going to need to reset your Ideal. For most Ideal boilers, there will be a reset button on the front panel of the boiler. Just press and hold the reset button for around 10 seconds or until you can clearly see the boiler has shut down and booted up again.
Upon restarting, any of the aforementioned noises, issues and fault codes should no longer occur. If any of these issues have persisted, then you should double check that the pipe has definitely been unblocked by frost and remember to apply the wrapping. If you don't think the frost has thawed then repeat the earlier steps and try again.
Unfortunately, if the problem persists beyond this, you will need to call out a Gas Safe heating engineer to perform a thorough check of your boiler.