New boiler - what to buy?

[geoff]

Have you actually looked at the state of the relay contacts ?

[Jason]

Customers with burnt fingers have even longer memories. They may save a penny today, but they lose out big time later.

-- JJ

[Harry Stottle]

It could be that the first guess for a repair is the PCB, then when this is replaced and is found to have not cured the problem, the real culprit is detected and replaced, i.e. the fan. The original PCB should have been refitted after the new replacement had made no difference, and before fitting a new 'fan', but it is easier, and more profitable, to say that the fan has damaged the PCB, so the new PCB is left in situ and charged for, along with the fan. I accept that a faulty component 'can' damage a PCB, and that PCB's do fail on their own, but there seems to be a lot of PCB's being replaced, a lot more than should be expected.

[Mark]

FWIW Worcester Bosch do a fix-priced repair that covers everything exept the Heat Exchanger IIRC. This could be good value if the PCB or other expensive component fails.

I used this when the fan died on mine.

[NoSpam]

Harry Stottle wrote: ... snipped

... snipped

When BG came to fix my Glowworm (according to Wife) they had a device that could interrogate the PCB so I assume there's a standard interface that allows them to read fault history and parameters before replacing.

Dave

[Mark]

I'm sure you're right - it's more down to profit. In my case it was a fixed price job so there was no benefit for WB to replace the PCB if it was not faulty.

When my fridge/freezer went wrong a repairer said that the PCB always blows when the defroster goes. He would not even try to replace just the defrost unit. In the end it turned out that replacement parts were no longer available, so the fridge went to landfill (Only 6 years old too!). Don't buy a Samsung!

[Stuart Noble]

It's not bad value when you consider the job is done in an hour, whatever the fault, and in my case a couple of extra parts were replaced as a precaution. As the boiler's now 5 years old I decided to go for an annual insurance which, given the price of parts, seemed like a good deal. I don't trust manufacturers of cars, boilers, and printers when it comes to built-in obsolescence. I'm sure they don't program the chips to fail, but it certainly seems that way sometimes.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It's pretty rare for 'chips' to fail - unless another fault causes then to be abused. Most likely 'PCB' failures are poor soldering, connector troubles and maybe capacitor failure. Pretty well all of these caused by penny pinching in design/manufacture. Think Geoff also mentioned relay failure. These do have a known life - and most with some sense would use plug in types for easy servicing if not willing to specify high quality ones.

[Vass]

exactly, thanks Dave

[Tim S]

Vass coughed up some electrons that declared:

Could you tell us more then, as per my first message - some of these things depend on what your goals are.

Cheers

Tim

[YAPH]

Que?

Nope I just found that soldering up the cracked track has got them working again. If that's not the fault I can't fix it ... but I know a man who can :-)

[YAPH]

- the fixed price currently being about £200, but if you're in a London pstcode it's almost £300.

[YAPH]

In the course of my work I come across relatively few condensing boilers and, of those, fewer Ideal Icos/Isar/Istors, but of the handful I have encountered all but, I think one, has had a PCB replaced. (That's ones I come across 'incidentally' - doing some non-boiler-related job. I've also replaced a couple of Ideal PCBs, and one fan.)

Talking to one of my landlord friends today I mentioned this and he just smiled and said he knows what to do. No, not chuck it out, get it on a BG service/breakdown contract :-)

[David]

Take your medication and go to sleep.

[geoff]

In message , Harry Stottle writes

As I said, fans on WBs are relay driven, and, with the exception of a dead short on the windings blowing a track (I've never seen it happen and few have seen more than I have)

The point that you seem to not quite have grasped is that the PCB is the most complicated and mystifying part of the boiler to a fitter, and once they have replaced that, they are back on relatively safe ground

So they replace the PCB - just in case it's where the fault lies and then they invent some bullshit like "Oh and the fan is faulty as well - it blew the pcb" ... utter rubbish

[geoff]

Fine when it works

an example ...

The other day, we were testing some Ideal Icos modules and we started getting an "HE" fault - which points to a module fault. Actually, it was a broken earth wire to the flame box

So ... take PCB diagnostics with a pinch of salt

[Doctor Drivel]

You are an idiot!

[Andy Champ]

I've got a 20-year-old Fuelsaver. Mind, it is on its third fan...

Andy

[David]

You have no experience with my boiler, I live with it and enjoy powerful showers with it. Even when the store is exhausted 15l/min is pretty good and hardly anyone spends more than 10 minutes continuously under the shower. So just take your medication my old friend and go to sleep.

[geoff]

It comes from the mechanical action of the relay cracking the solder joint