Here's a problem that has left a number of people stumped. I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who has experienced this at all.
I have a Glow Worm Ultimate FF 50 boiler which was already a few years old when I moved in 6 years ago - I'm guessing it's 12-15 years old. It's a cylinder system, with 2 hot water circuits - one for the house heating and one for the heating element in the hot water cylinder.
It's always worked well up until I had some electrical work done, which involved replacing the existing house fuseboard with a new consumer unit.
Since that time, there has been a major but peculiar problem with the boiler; If I leave the boiler switched off for a period of time (a few hours), when I switch it back on again there is a loud buzzing noise from the circuit board for around 15 minutes. During this time the boiler attempts to light itself, succeeds then immediately cuts out, to start again. This happens constantly taking about 10 seconds for a cycle. The buzzing sounds very much like a relay flicking on/off very fast.
Eventually the boiler seems to warm up a bit, and ignites for the last time, and the buzzing stops. Provided I leave the hot water heating on permanently after this, there is no further problem with the boiler whatsoever.
One thing I will add is that the *electrician* initially installed the consumer unit with neutral connected to the live. This was rectified a couple of weeks later.
In an attempt to rectify the boiler problem, a heating guy came round and replaced the circuit board and also the ignition cable/flame sensor. No change at all.
To me it seems that there is a problem with the ignition circuit, but how to get hold of someone capable of diagnosing this? Glow worm want to charge me £250 to come and look at it, with no promise of being able to get spares....
Has anyone else had this, and knows exactly what the problem is? I'm literally about to splash out on a brand new boiler to overcome this...
Thanks, if you can shed any light on this...
I have a Glow Worm Ultimate FF 50 boiler which was already a few years old when I moved in 6 years ago - I'm guessing it's 12-15 years old. It's a cylinder system, with 2 hot water circuits - one for the house heating and one for the heating element in the hot water cylinder.
It's always worked well up until I had some electrical work done, which involved replacing the existing house fuseboard with a new consumer unit.
Since that time, there has been a major but peculiar problem with the boiler; If I leave the boiler switched off for a period of time (a few hours), when I switch it back on again there is a loud buzzing noise from the circuit board for around 15 minutes. During this time the boiler attempts to light itself, succeeds then immediately cuts out, to start again. This happens constantly taking about 10 seconds for a cycle. The buzzing sounds very much like a relay flicking on/off very fast.
Eventually the boiler seems to warm up a bit, and ignites for the last time, and the buzzing stops. Provided I leave the hot water heating on permanently after this, there is no further problem with the boiler whatsoever.
One thing I will add is that the *electrician* initially installed the consumer unit with neutral connected to the live. This was rectified a couple of weeks later.
In an attempt to rectify the boiler problem, a heating guy came round and replaced the circuit board and also the ignition cable/flame sensor. No change at all.
To me it seems that there is a problem with the ignition circuit, but how to get hold of someone capable of diagnosing this? Glow worm want to charge me £250 to come and look at it, with no promise of being able to get spares....
Has anyone else had this, and knows exactly what the problem is? I'm literally about to splash out on a brand new boiler to overcome this...
Thanks, if you can shed any light on this...