Boiler Woes

[oafcmetty]

Hi all,

We had a brand spanking new boiler installed at the end of last year. It's a Saunier Duval model, Thema Classic 24e. here

Up until last week it had been working fine, however we've now started having problems with it.

What happens is that the boiler comes on (either for the central heating or the hot water) and is fine for a period of time (ranging from 5mins to 1hour+). After this time, the red fault light flashes and the boiler goes off. We've found that turning the boiler off at the mains, and leaving it for about 15 mins usually resets it, and the fault light goes off. The same cycle then occurs when the water/heating is used again.

We had a Saunier Duval engineer come out yesterday to see if he could fix the problem. He found nothing wrong with the boiler as such, but indicated that the problem may lie with 'dirty water' in the system, causing the heat exchanger to overheat and for the boiler to cut out.

He recommended we have our system 'powerflushed' to rectify the problem.

As such I have a few questions:

1) what is powerflushing?
2) is it likely to be effective?
3) who can carry it out for us (we live in SE London)?
4) how expensive is it likely to be?

Any advice gratefully received!

Regards,
oafcmetty

 

[oilman]

1) what is powerflushing?

Search the internet for powerflushing.

2) is it likely to be effective?

Depends on the problem.

3) who can carry it out for us (we live in SE London)?

4) how expensive is it likely to be?

Try yell or ring powerflushing manufacturers.

 

[oafcmetty]

I've spoken to a couple and it seems the cost will be around £400 for the powerflushing, plus maybe an extra £250 if the heat exchanger needs an acid soak to remove the crud inside it.

The guys I've spoken to were astounded that the boiler had only been in place for such a short time, and already was giving us grief.

That'll teach our landlady for using such a cowboy to install it...

 

[AdamW]

Wonderful, because that means you aren't the ones who pay for it!

It is definitely worth checking the gas safety certificate if you reckon she hired in cowboys. In order to rent out a property with a gas installation the landlord/lady must have one. If there isn't one, then there is a good chance that once finished the installers rode off into the sunset on horses a-whooping an' a-hollering "yeehaw".