Any advice for raven heat boiler

[bbulls1]

Hi

We had a raven heat boiler installed at the back end of September. Soon after it was installed we noticed we had no hot water. We went up to the loft to look at the boiler and a red light had come on.....When we looked this up it was over heat/failure to ignite.
We phoned raven heat who told us that we needed to contact out engineer which we did and he got advice from them and said its possibly because its a micro board. They suggested some things and he also turned down the water and heating temp on the boiler. This was fixed temporarily however today ive had to go to the loft to turn it off and on again 3 times....it seems to be worse when we have the hot water and heating on however it does go off when the heating is on and we don't use the hot water.....weve been in contact with our engineer again and he is reluctant to come back out so was hoping somebody could maybe give us some suggestions!?

Thanks!

 

[ianmcd]

I am guessing you mean you have micro-bore pipes to your rads i.e. 8mm pipe, if your new boiler is locking out on overheat it could be that you dont have the min flow rate required for the boiler, you really need to get the installer back, the boiler will still be under warranty but they will most probably make a charge if you call them out and it is an installation fault

 

[bbulls1]

Thank you

Is there a way around fixing this without having to replace all of the piping?

 

[Dan Robinson]

If rubbish flow is the problem, then one/two solutions is to put a low loss header or plate heat exchanger between the boiler and the heating system.

Will confuse most Ravenheap installers though

 

[bellairaphon]

I'd say a sledge hammer and a skip. But if it was me I'd be getting Ravenheat to look at the boiler. It's under warranty.

Nath

 

[dcawkwell]

Open all the radiator valves both sides of each radiator fully.
See if that causes the problem to go away.
I suspect you have thermostatic valves around the house with possibly
no by-pass installed.

 

[Slugbabydotcom]

No model of the boiler given!
A few ideas:-
Maybe there is some air needs venting from the boiler
A faulty ch thermistor is possible.
There could be some debris caught up within the boiler
Maybe a flow or return valve isnt fully open.

Basically something somewhere could be reducing the flow of water through the boiler enough to cause it to overheat.

A lot of plumbers are not fitting auto by pass valves, Dcawkwell's idea is a strong possibility so it's worth looking to see if one has been fitted.

I'm not a fan of boilers in lofts but I don't want to rant about it now, that's another story!

 

[muggles]

We had a raven heat boiler installed

That's a shame...

If your problem is a flow issue, due to blocked pipes for example (did your installer powerflush the system?) then it's unlikely Ravenheap will be interested in doing anything under warranty. What was the original reason for replacing your old boiler?

 

[Dan Robinson]

One wonders why the system bypass isn't allowing the boiler is to not lock out.

Until we see it is a ravenheap so probably thrown at the wall with no flush.

 

[transam]

All ravenheat boilers certainly the current ones 780 series , csi 120/150 & wh series all require an external by-pass to be fitted in order to maintain a min flow rate around the heat exchanger/boiler .

 

[bbulls1]

Its a Csi 85 aaa (t) 780 series boiler....

There are no thermostatic valves on the radiators and everything is open...what I do know is that the system was not flushed and when he returned he made sure there was no air in the boiler etc.

I think the next job is trying to get the engineer back to see if he put a bypass valve in.

 

[JBPHS]

No TRV's fitted during a recent boiler change, tut tut tut, unless you the customer specified for them not to be changed and provided that in writing, the majority of rads should have a TRV fitted.

No system flush (does not necessarily need to be a power flush, check installation manual).

Doubt that any cleanser has been to the system.

No auto-bypass fitted.

Has any inhibitor been added to the system.

Has the Benchmark Certificate (back of installation manual) been fully completed?

Was the installer Gas Safe Registered?

Has the installer notified Building Control of the installation (probably not, as it's not to the Regs that were in place during installation).

Boilers in lofts, seen a lot where auto air vent has been left closed, pockets of air in system circulate to highest point (boiler in loft), pump has no water to pump, pump overheats, pump seizes. Hopefully this is not the case for your installation as it's not usually covered by manufacturers warranty.

Get the installer back to complete the installation and rectify, installation errors should be put right by the original installer.

James.

 

[transam]

The 780 series AAA combi does have an integral by-pass , how ever with trv's an additional by-pass should be fitted ? I would suggest the with 10 or 8mm the same rule would apply

As I understand it ?? it only occurs when hot water is drawn ?? i.e the boiler go's to an over heat lock out ?

What boiler did this ravenheat replace ?? was the original boiler on a sealed system i.e is it replacing another combi ?? or did u have the system converted to a combi/sealed system from an open type system ?

Incidentally i would not bget to concerned ? about this trv caper , u cannot be forced into having them neither will any one come around to arrest u

 

[bbulls1]

Originally it only started locking out when we had the hot water running with the heating on, however when we went away for a few days at xmas we left the heating on low and it had gone off when we got back.
We have been turning it off and on again and it has gone off in as little as 30 mins!

The engineer is reluctantly coming back to look at it and has said he may flush it but is going to have a think!

The boiler it replaced was a rubbish one and we had a tank etc for the hot water....There we were thinking we'd benefit from a combi! weve had nothing but trouble with it!

 

[JBPHS]

bbulls1, have you checked that the Benchmark Cert has been filled out? Some manufacturers won't touch any boiler that's not had the Benchmark filled out. It probably hasn't been completed if he hasn't flushed the system. The flush should be flushed straight after the installation to comply with manufacturers instructions. I would not usually expect any of my customers to pay any extra for a flush as this would be part of the installation costs. If your fully paid up with the installation and complied with his terms (I don't want to get too involved in this bit to be fair) then I'd get in touch with the manufacturers tomorrow and pass on his details, it's not in their best interests to promote installers who install and run. When I do any warranty work where I didn't carry out the installation, I've been informed by manufacturers to give the original installer a call to find out what their intentions are.

I hate it when I hear of installers who won't follow up on their own work, it's in their best interests to do so. I'm an installer myself and this is not the way forward.