Vaillant grinding sound inhibitor

[John Williamson]

I have a Vaillant ecoTec 832 which was installed on 15th November 2016 and has been nothing but trouble.

Under warranty vaillant have been out 3 times to replace the diverter valve, the pump and today the circuit board.

There is a grinding noise still coming when you use hot water. The engineer said it was because there was too much inhibitor in the system. Is this possible? My installer seems to think it nonsense and just wanted another opinion.

For the record the system was power flushed 3 weeks before install and has a magna clean magnetic filter installed at the same time as the boiler install.

 

[muggles]

Depends on the inhibitor manufacturer, but most say it's impossible to overdose a system. Sounds like they're trying to pull a fast one

Just out of interest, did they take your card details before they'd come out to the boiler? Heard a rumour they're doing that now, just wondered whether it was true!

 

[John Williamson]

Thanks @muggles

Depends on the inhibitor manufacturer, but most say it's impossible to overdose a system. Sounds like they're trying to pull a fast one

The guy who did the power flush used a 1 Litre bottle of Sentinel x100. This is a pretty big house with 9 radiators upstairs and the entire ground floor fitted with wet underfloor heating. (5 zones)

Just out of interest, did they take your card details before they'd come out to the boiler? Heard a rumour they're doing that now, just wondered whether it was true!

They did indeed. They pre-authorise £90 per visit on your card and if the fault is found to be something other than the boiler itself i.e. installation issues, dirty system, they will charge the card. Fortunately for me, each visit they have replaced a part of the boiler so they can't really say it's solely down to external things.

Thought it might be useful to post the sound the boiler makes.

Brand new Vaillant 832 Grinding

• John Williamson
• 1 Dec 2016

The wife and I are arguing over whether it sounds more like a helicopter or a light sabre.

 

[John Williamson]

And from Sentinel's own literature.

Can I overdose my system with Sentinel X100?
It is not necessary to add more than 1 litre of Sentinel X100 to a typical domestic system of 8 to 10 radiator panels (which is a system volume of about 70L). However, exceeding this dose, by even as much as several percent will have no negative effect on the system... only on the purse!!

 

[muggles]

Sounds under-dosed if anything - I'd have put two bottles of X100 into that. Thanks for the confirmation about the charge.

 

[ianmcd]

sounds like your pump is away again, and I have about 8L of inhibitor in my system and have never had any problems whatsoever, I have lots of the stuff and everytime I change a radiator or whatever I stick another bottle in, have never seen any problems with over dosing with X100, X800 system cleanser is an other problem completely, I dont use it anymore as it was eating pump bearings.

 

[wannocks]

That noise is usually a restricted heat exchanger or a circulation problem (water not flowing through the heat exchanger fast enough)

 

[Bunnyman]

Mmm these boilers are very very reliable, i would deffo be looking at external causes with the noise, yes u can overdose especially fernox it plays havok with the new erp pumps causing squealing noises

 

[John Williamson]

Thanks a lot for all your responses. Just to update on progress, after a great deal of discussion Vaillant will be sending over a senior engineer on Monday to resolve the issue.

Their suspicion is that the problem is caused either by a bad reaction between the chemicals used in a power flush performed 3 weeks ago and the Sentinel x100 or a faulty heat exchanger plate.

They are going to completely drain the system and refill and replace the heat exchanger if the problem persists. And for the record this time have not asked for credit card details....

Will update after that visit and hopefully have a video of a perfectly silent boiler.

 

[Hason]

Any updates John as my customer has something similar
Thanks

 

[John Williamson]

Any updates John as my customer has something similar
Thanks

Apologies, should have posted sooner. After writing directly to the Vaillant CEO (don't ask me how I got his email address) they sent over a senior engineer and an area manager to take a look.

They firstly emptied the system completely of water, replaced the heat exchanger plate and filled it back up again. Extremely thorough and very effective, they were at my house for a good 6 hours.

It's now completely silent as it should have been. They monitored the levels of inhibitor which were normal and so the most likely thing is that the inhibitor reacted badly to the cleaning solution used in the power flush. Apparently very rare.

Unfortunately I do not know the chemicals which were used to clean but the recommendation is to completely empty the system of water, a couple of times if needs be, and refill putting in the correct amount or inhibitor. Vaillant specifically recommended Fernox on this occasion.

The noise comes apparently from the reaction foaming up in the heat exchanger. It is in no way dangerous, just irritating.

 

[Bunnyman]

As i said then

 

[Bunnyman]

What postcode are u? Im interested in talking to the senior tech an rsm that attended??

 

[John Williamson]

What postcode are u? Im interested in talking to the senior tech an rsm that attended??

SE12

Can I just say that the two guy who attended on the last visit were absolutely outstanding. The other visits had left me with the feeling that despite this boiler being only two weeks old I was on my own to argue the toss with my plumber.

These guys went through everything with a fine tooth comb, understood my frustration (3 days off work to wait for plumbers, I've had better holidays) and took responsibility for something which was probably the original installers error.

I've now owned 5 vaillant boilers in my own houses and properties I've developed and will continue to use them going forward thanks to this.