Worcester Bosch 350 boiler questions

[stealth911]

Hi All - I've reviewed the similar topics in this forum but just wanted to run thi s by you...
We have WB 350 Combi boiler that has recently started popping the overheat button when drawing hotwater. It will also sometimes do the same when just the central heating is on. It might be co-incidental but this has only started happening since thames water replaced the old water mains in our street.. Anyway, we have service contract with british gas and they sent out an engineer who said that it's too old to fix and needs replacing with one of their shiny new boilers.. Mmm.. Having looked at this site I called WB directly and their technical dept said that it's very likely to be the plate heat exchanger. They can replace this on a call out.

Do any of you have an opinion on this? Is it worth paying the £200 for the call out and the replacement or as it's 8 years old should I be looking to replace.. Thanks all.
Pete

 

[ollski]

No it's worth ringing british gas up again, telling them they can get the parts no problem and you would like it to be fixed. You can specify that you don't want the guy who came last time and tell the next one as early as possible that the previous engineer seemed more desperate to sell a new one than fix the old one. With a bit of luck that will stop the sales pitch.

 

[gavinda]

sounds like you've had one of our qualtiy engineers out, do as above and ask for a second opinion. also try asking for a technical support manager to attend. this will give a bit more weight to the 'repair' part of the contract. bear in mind though, this happens on my patch, if the dhw heat exchanger is blocked, we would charge for the part and cover the labour under contract. it may also be worth getting in touch with water board, if as you state the fault only occured following their works in your area.

 

[superdupergasman]

Could just be a simple case of the thermistors going out of range! can be checked with a multimeter by BG along with checking if the gas rate on the boiler is modulating, I would be changing these first along with a new overheat stat as these can go out of calibration once they have poped a few times. Then it could be a sluggish pump on the hot water side or as said the Plate heat exchanger.

Have you topped up system pressure since the work was done on the
mains?? if not then there is no change of debris being in the sytem water side.

 

[stealth911]

thanks everyone.. I figured it was a bit of a sales push.. I'll get onto them on Monday with your suggestions.. Have a good weekend!

 

[nickso]

sounds like you've had one of our qualtiy engineers out, do as above and ask for a second opinion. also try asking for a technical support manager to attend. this will give a bit more weight to the 'repair' part of the contract. bear in mind though, this happens on my patch, if the dhw heat exchanger is blocked, we would charge for the part and cover the labour under contract. it may also be worth getting in touch with water board, if as you state the fault only occured following their works in your area.

technically if water quality has not been mentioned and there have been no previous repairs due to water quality then the first blockage should be repaired. remedial work should then be quoted and future water quality issues would be chargeable if the remedial work is not acted on.
unfortunately it varies from patch to patch.

 

[gavinda]

yeah i know . our patch has pretty bad water and tbh most cons have been told many times what thier problems are. but they do like to try it on.

 

[totalshell]

i have a service/repir contract for two large blocks of flats all fitted with WB 350
alll part available no problem
fixed exactly this problem last week new expansion vessel and blow off ( for piece of mind) 45 minutes work including the cup of tea and writing the invoice..

 

[stealth911]

The BG engineer has come back and taken the order for the plate heat exchanger. It was a different guy to last time and he's confirmed that these boilers are fairly solid and most items can be repaired. He also said that some engineers can be pushy on the sales thing.. Thanks again for everyone's advice. I'll report back when the fitting is complete and the fault repaired (hopefully)
Cheers

 

[stealth911]

All - thanks for your assistance with this. The plate heat exchanger was replaced by a new engineer. He basically confirmed what you said about parts being readily available and that this boiler was very serviceable. British Gas didn't charge for the fitting and did it as part of the contract so I only paid for the part, which was £120.00. The boiler throughput has improved and there have been no more cut-outs.

Many thanks to all for the guidance.

 

[nickso]

why did you have to pay for the part?

 

[petit_pablo]

why did you have to pay for the part?

Because he didnt read the T&Cs throughly!

Has a cust the other day who had highlighted the T&Cs thats states if they havent been previously told about sludge / scale then its not chargeable. Im sure i told them the system was mucky as i had changed the previous plate 6weeks previously to this one for pinholing. Cant prove i did though as i didnt write it on job report

 

[nickso]

why did you have to pay for the part?

Because he didnt read the T&Cs throughly!

Has a cust the other day who had highlighted the T&Cs thats states if they havent been previously told about sludge / scale then its not chargeable. Im sure i told them the system was mucky as i had changed the previous plate 6weeks previously to this one for pinholing. Cant prove i did though as i didnt write it on job report

thats the point though. i dont think the OP has been warned about poor water quality therefore he is entitled to a free repair.