Siemans Wireless Thermostat System - Fit for purpose?

[naffer]

A week or two ago my daughter asked me to have a look at her CH. The heating was very intermittent. She had a Siemens thermostat in the sit ting room with a wireless receiver in the airing cupboard upstairs alongsid e the combi. No heating.

On checking on the web I found that it was suggested that the the Siemens r eceiver might have a known problem with a "sticky - relay" that could be c orrected with a rap of a knuckle.

This simple & temporary fix worked & I suggested that she had a word with t he Co. that did her CH about 2-3 years ago to see if this is a known proble m & could be subject to a warranty fix.

The fitter called & confirmed that it was probably a "sticky relay" & said that since Siemens don't sell the receiver unit alone he would have to rep lace to thermostat & receiver. He charged over £100 for this wisdom.

He went on to say that it could be possible to "clean the relay" (see bel ow *) but it would be better if she re-installed with Honeywell kit, which is better!

Two days ago my son called me to say that his partner's property had proble ms with its CH. Yes, another Siemens system installed at a similar time. Similar symptoms. Same installer/fitters.

So I replaced my daughter's kit with a Honeywell ChronoTherm system. It is now totally OK as the fitter had suggested.

Amused by the fitter's observation that the relay is the failing unit & co uld have some dust in it, I took the failing Siemens receiver apart. The r elay is a sealed component and I suppose I could unsolder it & replace, fix ing it seems a bit extreme. He was talking Bollocks, unless, of course he knew that Siemens were buying sealed relays from dusty Chinese Cos.

BTW: A neighbour had two Siemens receivers fail - allegedly due to a power outage - he has a big house with an upstairs/d9ownstairs system.

Coincidence: Possibly but it may be that Siemens is selling something that ain't fit for purpose.

Thoughts ????

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

I'm not sure I'd pay that much for diagnosis of a fault (or confirmation of a suspected cause) for something that should still be working only 2-3 years after it was fitted. (And, if your daughter's had problems for a while, it may be towards the 2-year point).

I'd be inclined to pay much less, maybe £25, and make it clear that as you reasonably think the fitter should replace the non-working part at his expense (and he can pursue recompense from his supplier in his own time) that that is as far as your (or your daughter's) goodwill extends.

... unless he's got her over a barrel for future support?

A call to the CAB or Trading Standards might be a good idea.

and it will do no harm to pass that info on to Trading Standards...

with that proviso, of course!

[bert]

It might be worth contacting Siemens

[tony sayer]

In article , naffer scribeth thus

This all sounds a bit bollocks, a sticking relay after just a couple of years?.

And cleaning a sealed relay, whatever did he use?. Must have been a good brand of snake oil that one. We have equipment's around that have used sealed relays and have been on the go for years. Either thats a piss poor make and type of relay or the contacts are arcing with no effective arc suppression and that will be casing them to stick.

I'd send a strongly worded letter to Siemens telling them that you think their products aren't good enough for purpose!...

[RJH]

This?:

Mine would lose wifi for no particular reason, and need a masonic blend of button holds to reset. In fairness, their telephone support was superb, but I swapped it out after a couple of fails.

[Graham.]

It sounds like the relay contacts may be getting temporally welded together because they are being asked to switch a load greater than it was designed for, or one that is highly inductive.

Do you know what it was directly switching?

Typically, in central heating, the programmer only switches on a motorised valve, and when the valve is fully open a microswich in the valve switches on the pump, gas valves, fan, etc.

[ARW]

I was going to suggest the same model.

I have fitted hundreds of them and they are (or certainly were) a pile of s**te.