worcester bosch 19/24 CBi boiler

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

HI Chaps,

I was woken up this morning by the boiler making a weird sound which we thought was an airlock, so we made sure the radiators were all=20 full and the noise seemed to go away...

but I was sat at the computer and heard a tic tic ticking noise, which I =

thought was the boiler trying to light and failing of course on closer=20 inspection he noise was a drip drip dripping, and water was leaking from =

the boiler all over the mains incoming to the house which happens to be=20 below it!!!! Yes I know not clever positioning but this is what we=20 inherited from the previous owner.

So I've drained the system down to stop the leak

I rang our usual plumber chap who said "your heat exchangers cracked---=20 you need a new boiler!"

This one is 6 years old and had a problem with the pcb and possibly the=20 thermal sensors about 4 weeks ago which we thought we'd fixed. (=A3600=20 down the drain so to speak (this included a new three port valve))

So my questions are:

Is it worth trying to just change the heat exchanger or is the gas valve =

pcb and air pressure valve trashed because of the water?

Is replacing this with a vaillant system (or maybe cistern not sure of=20 what the plumber guy said over the phone)boiler a reasonable move.=20 apparently it doesn't need a header tank if I understand correctly. I=20 would be keeping the hot water tank and everything else the same.

I was roughly quoted =A32000 for this, is this reasonable?

Is there any chance my house insurance will cough up for the replacement =

boiler.

Sorry for asking such basic questions but I know you can be helpful.

dedics

and yes I am thinking of taking an angle grinder to it!

[stuart noble]

Worcester Bosch charge a flat fee (£200 ish), which includes replacement of up to 3 major parts (a bit extra if the heat exchanger has gone). I wouldn't put much faith in your "usual plumber chap"

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

yes I know, it took them 2 visits last time, and perhaps the heat=20 exchanger failure is their fault too.

Do you think there's any mileage in getting the WB repair queried?

I thought that because there was water everywhere all the circuit=20 components would/might be trashed...

dedics

[stuart noble]

I got them out 11 months after their previous visit, and they did indeed admit that they screwed up the first time, so I wasn't charged.

I'd ring them up and make your case. It really isn't reasonable to have so much trouble with a 6 year old boiler

[YAPH]

The good news is that the heat exchanger is probably not cracked: there are 'O'-rings that seal the ends to the unions with the pipework at the left side, and to blanking plates at the right side, and it's probably just these that are knackered.

The bad news is that it still requires a major dismantling of the boiler to get at them and I suspect it's a persistent problem with the material of the rings not being up to the job. Last time I had to do this job W-B spun me a line about how the system couldn't have been properly flushed out (which it had no specific warning about anyway) and that it was un-flushed-out crud accumulating in the heat exchanger causing hot spots which in turn were causing damage to the O-rings. However I didn't find any noticeable amount of crud deposited in the h-x and I did notice that the colour of the rings was differnt to the last set (grey rather than black IIRC) suggesting they'd changed the formulation.

Whether you choose to bite the bullet and go for a new boiler rather than throw good money into what is probably not Worcester's most reliable example of conventional-tech boiler (the only one in the range with a cast-iron heat exchanger AFAIK) is up to you.

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

Thanks for that, I'm still not happy that everything has been soaked in water and am concerned about future reliabilty.

Yep, the problem is not just that it's not been very reliable from about a year ago, so I think we will go for a new boiler.

is the vaillant eco 24 system boiler reasonably good and reliable?

Dedics

[YAPH]

Probably: Vaillant have a pretty good reputation. (Maybe Ed will be along in a bit: I think they're his favourite.) Personally I fit Worcester-Bosch which are generally pretty good and suit me better as some of their range are a one-man lift onto the wall, and that's exactly the same number of people that I am ;-)

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

So how come the 19/24 CBi is so bad? it's only lasted 6 years and has been very temperamental.

dedics

[YAPH]

I think it's the runt in Worcester's litter. Most of their range are pretty reliable, but are a quite different design. Quite why they chose to make one model with a cast-iron heat exchanger when they had a perfectly good lightweight exchanger they used in all their others, beats me.