Ideal Icos HE18 - Know the issue but need a second opinion.

[ninocass]

Hi All

Our central heating was loosing pressure, a few of the rads appeared to be have been seeping at one time or another so I replaced them to see if it solved the problem but it didn't.

I had our usual engineer come out and when he was servicing the boiler he noticed water dripping from the bottom of the boiler (Ideal ICOS HE18) when we removed the S-Trap from the base of the boiler. The boiler hadn't been on so there wouldn't be any condensate and when we increased the pressure on the system the flow of drops increased slightly. Also in the S-Trap was a mix of sand (from the casting i guess) and aluminium which suggests the heat exchanger.

He has suggested swapping the boiler out for a new one, I need a little advise on what would be the best plan of action.

The boiler is ~8 years old, I have annual service documents for the past 5 years so its been well maintained and seems to be functioning well other than we need to increase the pressure every day.

Looking at costs of parts on line a heat exchanger kit is around 400. You can pick-up a 18KW Worcester boiler for around £800.

Is it worth spending the 400 on the 8 year old ideal or should I just bite the bullet and get a new boiler?

Thanks for any help

 

[Dean744PiN5]

does sound like the heat exchanger has split, unfortunately no amount of servicing or maintenance can prevent that from happening.
Your boiler has an incredibly bad reputation, i still have a few on the books and looked after they can be ok (just ok mind).
But in your case its not worth spending that much money on it, so replacement seems feasible.
Worcester are over rated plastic junk, you should consider the intergas 18sb.
Very reliable boiler with a cracking (pardon the pun) heat exchanger that has never had a failure.

 

[St0rmer66]

I wouldn't spend a single penny on an Icos personally! If money was tight then I suppose a fixed price repair from Ideal would be the best option.