Heatline Expert - anybody?

[jonny1975]

Thanks Bagelly, great advice. Can you be more specific about the parts you soldered i.e. do you have any pics ???

I also had a Heatline S30 boiler with this same intermittent fault.

I switch the boiler on and it will ignite and pump water to the rads but after 5-10 mins the gas will cut out, the boiler then tries to ignite again it sparks but does not ignite. It tries to ingite a few times and then the "check burner ionisation probe" LED flashes. If you switch it off and on again it will work as before for 5-10 mins.

I employed a Corgi (now Gas Safe) registered plumber who immediately concluded it was the gas valve. This was duly replaced but the same fault occured immediately.

We were given a choice of beginning to swap more parts, wiring loom, PCB, electrodes but with no guarantee of success or fitting a new boiler at a cost of £2000.

We have subsequently been getting various quotes and advice. As the boiler had effectively been written off I decided to have a look at the internals myself. I flipped down the control panel and opened it up to check the wires from the ionisation probe. All the wires, and chipsets looked ok, so I flipped over the PCB to inspect the solder joints. Whilst nothing looked too obvious there were a couple of dry joints. I resoldered these joints (one was to the back of the ionisation probe plug!) and closed the control panel. SUCCESS! the boiler now seems to be working perfectly fine but I will keeping a close eye on it for the next month or so.

After reading a number of forums this seems to be a very common fault with the Heatline S24 / S30. A number of other people have also identified this as an electrical / wiring issue - so my advice is check this first and save yourself a small fortune!!

 

[jonny1975]

Hi, great post, many thanks. I have the same problem, do you have any more information about which wires were frazzled?

Just in case any body is interested it turned out to be the wiring not the

PCB
Ionisation Probe
Gas valve
Seal (which took two weeks to arrive)
Overheat thermostats x 2

All of which were swapped out. The whole exercise cost more than the boiler (almost) and five weeks of no heating or hot water and all because of a few frazzled wires. Don't gas engineers diagnose problems rather than just swap out parts starting with the most expensive one first ("eh its yer PCB mate - its blown!") in the hope of finding the cause of a fault. Corgi registered indeed!! Means nothing!!

 

[shawd]

Time to stick up for the decent gas engineers, sick of hearing about folks that have no clue at all how to repair boilers telling a registered gas safe engineer his job...... Like it has been said you should ask for a quote to repair and do not hand any money over till its fixed,,,,,simples,,

Not everyone knows everything and if they dont know how to fix boiler just walk away.

 

[Agile]

I really dont know how any customer can pay someone to replace parts which are not the cause of the fault on a try it and see basis.

You should only engage an engineer who operates a no-fix no-fee charging basis.

Very occasionally its is difficult to identify which of two components are faulty. Thats particularly so when there are two PCBs which work together but even then its up to the engineer to make his best guess and if its wrong to get the other one and return the unused new one to his stock.

You should not have to pay someone to change parts at your expense because he does not know how to diagnose a fault.

Tony

 

[adlplumbing]

he right though corgi resteration means nothing its gas safe know

 

[currybum]

I have a Heatline S24 with same fault i.e. intermittent loss of H.W. & C.H. with error 90 showing on LEDs. The ionisation probe has been changed and the PCB. Still the same! The boiler ignites, runs for 5 secs, then stops. Tried again about 3 times, then error 90 appears.

The is so intermittent and boiler can run fine for weeks.

The water in the system is not clean, so not sure if a power wash would help?

3 engineers have visited and have not been able to suggest anything other than whats been done. Just a shrug of shoulders and "should have bought a Worcester"!

At my wits end and am seriously thinking about a new Worcester 24i Junior.

Any advice welcome, but a quick surf just seems to confirm Heatline are unreliable rubbish.

Feedback / suggestions welcome

 

[onlyfitidealboilers]

you get what you pay for in this world, take that on and life will get better!

 

[Beerlover]

The 90 ° light flashing means failure to detect a flame. The high level stat on the condense trap will interrupt this. Is the condense pipe run to a waste pipe by any chance. Try rerouting this and see how the boiler performs.

Also check the flame picture and make sure that it is stable on top of the burner. Has any flue restrictor been fitted/required.

Sill a carp boiler, but hope this helps.

BTW start your own post next time

 

[Agile]

I think you may have had too much beer tonight! This is an owner not an engineer.

This is just a boiler and quite a simple one really. It really should not be difficult for any competent engineer to find the fault and fix it.

Tony