Boiler advice

JustMe · 2008-02-11T19:26:06+00:00

Hi,Sorry, this isn't directly DIY and is probably a little longer thannecessary, but I would like to understand how this works before I take thedecision on whether to get my boiler repaired or replaced.I have a Worcester 24i boiler in my house, which is a four bedroommid-terrace with ten radiators, a bathroom, an en-suite, a kitchen and alaundry room (with sink and washing machine).Lately the boiler's become unreliable. Sometimes I'll run the hot tap andget nothing but cold water, sometimes the CH wont come on, sometimes when Itry to run a bath it'll start hot and then, after a few minutes, the waterwill run cold. The same thing might happen while I'm doing the washing upand it'll take me a few tries faffing around with the taps and switching theboiler on and off, before I can get the hot water flowing again. I'll lookthrough the peephole and see no fire.It's a combi boiler, so I assume it should keep heating the water for aslong as I require.A plumber came round earlier today and advised that there were probablythree issues: the PCB (relays were chattering as he played with the timer),the clock (clicking noisily as a matter of course and cutting in and outwhen he pressed on it) and the fan (noisy bearing and possibly not creatingsufficient pressure) and that these would cost approx £500+VAT to sort.He suggested that it wasn't worth the cost of repair as more repairs wouldbe likely to follow down the line due to the age of the boiler, which he putat 7-8 years old.About 1 year ago, a different plumber visited to rectify another problem: Ihad complained that the flow of hot water in the upstairs bathroom was tooslow. He removed a plastic thing from the boiler which he referred to as the"flow regulator" and this seemed to do the trick.Today's plumber says that this was illegal insofar as, if the previousplumber were Corgi registered, he would never have made this modificationwhich is against the manufacturer's spec and, therefore illegal and, if heweren't Corgi...

Feb 11, 2008 81 Replies

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John Rumm 18 years ago

To be fair this is all I had on mine, and never found the need to use it. I just left the temp control sat at "2" (where max was "6")

Depends a bit on how the boiler does its modulation... the simplest control would be to modulate so as to attempt to keep the return below the dew point. The flow will be limited by the max water temp stat.

It can only lower it to the minimum of the modulation range. On some boilers this is still quite high power (i.e. 8kW or more)

Probably not... depends on where you are starting from I guess.

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