Being boiled

[hirez]

As appears traditional for the winter season, the combi boiler has been playing up. It would randomly fail to restart and sit there blinking its error LED gormlessly.

I was mostly of a mind to just prod the reset button and hope it came back, which it did mostly. However, there was always the cheery thought whenever it required a second or third reboot that perhaps this was when it had finally had enough.

I rang the nice people who put it in. The obviously harried woman on the end of the phone told me that they didn't do repairs any more and that I should ring some chap called Andy. Obviously, his mobile number rang out and I left a message, expecting to have to work my way through the Yellow Pages starting with Mr AAA Hot Water. [/Severed Heads]

The chap rang back. Would first thing tomorrow be ok? (today)

Well, yes. Obv.

He turned up when he said he would, poked at the boiler for a bit in an effort to make it break (intermittent fault y'see) and in servicing the thing discovered it most likely that the control board was expiring.

Which was nice.

Comments

[edwards.livejournal.com]

Combi Boiler Failures:

Controller board - usually manifested by failure to maintain pilot, erratic behaviour, or just not working.
No heat - lack of pressure.
Pressure loss - expansion chamber overfilled; pressure relief valve failing or maladjusted.
Relief valve failed - expansion chamber has no air in it. They appear to have a schrader valve to put some air in.

And finally...

Just existing.

I like the old Ideal Mexico 2 in the cellar. It hadn't been serviced for a decade. I got it done, it decided not to work. Replace thermocouple. Still refuses to work. Hit with hammer. Works.

(The safety valve was sticking because it had never been off for that decade).

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

I liked the old 1930s Potterton boiler we had in the kitchen when I was a kid. The control was clockwork - you knew if it had stopped working because it stopped ticking, and all it needed was to be wound back up. It had worked for something like 50 years before it finally died. We replaced it with a whizzy microchip controlled boiler which needed fixing several times in the first few years...

[hirez.livejournal.com]

There was an Aga that did hot water in the one place, but no central heating otherwise. When we moved in 1976, mater demanded proper heating, so radiators were installed in several useless places. Under single-glazed windows. Genius.

That one was run on the wrong flavour of oil (because it came via the farm in a big tanker and it was nearly right. Insert rant about 'making do' and 'not making a fuss') so the boiler bit would rust out for a pastime and thus spring massive leaks when you needed it most.

Heating that doesn't break in the winter is terribly modern and exciting.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

What is it with the Brits - we can't design a reliable boiler, and all our showers are shit. I wonder if Northern Europeans do it better though, the Swedes and the Norwiegans for example.

[maluse.livejournal.com]

The designers of my previous boiler took the innovative approach of giving the tracks on the control board a lower current rating than the fuse so that the PCB (£100) would burn out in the event of a fault and prevent damage to the fuse (10p). Much fun.

[pxcampbell.livejournal.com]

Okay -- what's a combi boiler?

Is it for heat? Hot water? Tea?

Inquiring Yanks wanna know!

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

Combi boiler = heating and (instant) hot water. Rather than having a heating boiler and a separate insulated tank with an immersion heater for hot water.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Yes; ie. combi = combination.

It's a space-saving thing, mostly (no tank), hence why Yanks other than trailer-trash have probably no need for one. Theoretically it is also more energy-efficient, as you only heat the actual hot water you use, rather than a whole tankfull regardles of anticipated need. Given the difference in taxation on petroleum products between the UK and the US, energy efficiency is probably another reason the Americans don't need to use them.

The major downside is that it can take some time between turning the tap (faucet) on and the water actually getting hot. In the depths of winter in our house, it can take 3 minutes or so, but I suspect that's because we live in the middle of nowhere and the water pipes are going through frozen ground rather than a relatively warm urban environment. This lead-time may counteract any environmental benefit of not heating a tank, because you end up throwing away two basins full of water before it actually gets hot.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Why is it, that controller boards, pretty much the only non-moving part in boilers, washing machines and tumble dryers, always seem to be the first thing to go wrong?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

For more or less the same reasons that HT circuitry, serial ports, h/w control cards on disk drives and print-head drivers were/are the first bits to expire. Electronics + (moving parts || real-world voltages) = trouble.