British Gas 330+ Boiler - constant problems

[SteveO35]

I would be grateful if anyone out there can help with constant problems I am getting with a British Gas 330+ High Efficiency Condensing Boiler that I had installed by British Gas only a year ago.

Since I had the boiler installed I've had nothing but trouble with getting the house heated to the desired temperature. This has happened several times and follows the same pattern.

The thermostat which is located downstairs in the hall is set to either 22 or 23 degrees nearly all of the time. The heating and hot water are set to come on twice per day - once in the morning, once in the evening.

The heating comes on for a while and heats the house to say 18 or 19 degrees and then goes off. Regardless of how high the thermo is set, it stays off until either

a) the house cools down to eskimo temperatures (OK slight exaggeration)
b) I have to run the hot water for several minutes which is obviously completely inefficient. Then the heating comes on once more

I have had 3 British Gas engineer visits in the past year and this is driving me mad.

Any help would be much, much appreciated

 

[scatmanjohn]

Sounds like a zone valve issue.

Do you have 2 zone valves on the system? (1 for hw and 1 for the ch)

 

[SteveO35]

Without wishing to sound a total idiot how would I know ??

 

[Ray84]

Steve should be an easy fix if your on homecare and have your 2/3 yr g'tee just phone up for an engineer tomorrow.
If he cant answer your question ask for his service managers number. Explain the problem and you might find them to be quite helpful.
The boiler i expect is fine. If your house is cold its basicly just not calling for heat and i would assume that like the last poster was asking about zone valves these will be in place and will not have been replaced at the time of the installation.

Ask for an engineer. Tell him your problem and ask him to check the heating zone valve, if he says its ok ask for the room stat to be replaced or ask him his opinion on where its been installed (maybe near a heat source etc)

If you can get the right engineer it will be a simple job

good luck

Ray

 

[SteveO35]

Thanks for the advice guys. I have a British Gas engineer visit booked for tomorrow. Hope they diagnose it this time but will raise your points with them. Thanks again

 

[Razor900]

Or the three ports round the wrong way

 

[kittedup]

Ask the engineer to check the anti cycling time on the boiler. If it's still set to 20 mins the boiler can get up to temp then shut down for 20mins before it refires, this will give you a cold house as described.

Ted

 

[Andygasman2010]

Keep kicking up a fuss till it's sorted. Multi visits and recalls are a big thing for them so get the local SM involved.

 

[Ray84]

i had a look at the book for one there i cant see anything about the 20min cycling time,
although ive never fitted one ive worked on plenty/changed pcbs so im not sure if that will be the correct area to look at but like Andy says you have paid a lot of money for what should be a good system and will get it fixed.
Ask the engineer for his number once they think its fixed so you can let them know if it breaks (they will probably chase you) and if they do ask for the SM's number instead once there on the case it should be quickly resolved without any fallouts.

Ray

 

[petit_pablo]

Ask the engineer for his number once they think its fixed so you can let them know if it breaks

Ray

Haha BG lads know better than to give out their mobile numbers! The only ones that do, do it when they are trying to sell things.

 

[Morris40]

any chance you could let us know what the problem was if or when fixed

 

[kittedup]

I would have thought one of the previous engineers would have spotted a faulty 2 or 3 port. Same for a faulty room stat.

My thinking is that is must be strange if it hasn't been sorted yet, hence the anti cycling comment. I was caught out on this 2 years ago.

So my imaginary fiver is on that on the premise that the previous engineers have checked the rest of the system and found it working correctly.

Ted

 

[SteveO35]

Problem diagnosed in all of two minutes by the engineer. A faulty three way valve, so the heating was only coming out while the hot water was on. Why it tokk a 3rd visit to diagnose....who knows ? The valve was new at time of boiler replacement so perhaps given it was only 1 year old they did not suspect it. Anyway thanks for all your advice and help

 

[Ray84]

Good outcome its ashame how much of a lottery you play when you phone up for a service call but looks like you got the right guy today

Cheers
Ray

 

[Agile]

It also shows just how silly it is to ASSUME that a nearly new valve is not faulty!

The reality is that EVERYTHING has to be checked in sequence regardless of its age and only then will the real fault be identified quickly, efficiently and on just one visit!

Thats why the third guy should be paid a very good bonus and those previous lazy people should have had a payment docked for the time they caused to be expended in further visits.

Perhaps they need a paper checklist to tick off it they cannot perform reliably. Pilots use that for their preflight checks!

Tony