What's wrong with my Vaillant Ecotec Plus boiler?

[gas4you]

I can see DM's reasoning about the sealed system kit. Any system will be better in the long run being sealed.

If there is a fault or slight blockage anyway, then changing to a sealed system is not going to cure it.

I would suggest that the power flush is the best option for now, that may even be what your installer was referring to by 'descaling'

 

[Deleted member 105431]

I can see DM's reasoning about the sealed system kit. Any system will be better in the long run being sealed.

If there is a fault or slight blockage anyway, then changing to a sealed system is not going to cure it.

I would suggest that the power flush is the best option for now, that may even be what your installer was referring to by 'descaling'

we don't know the feed and vent configuration nor the position of the pump. If these are both ok then you can run a 15/60 without problem, the reason I recommend a robokit is to eliminate this as a possible factor and sealed systems are quieter with pump on full. Corrosion as you know is significantly reduced and air in the system is less of a problem.

 

[Agile]

The Magnaclean is to catch mobile magnetic particles in the heating water.

Your system seems to have limited flow and that seems to me to be more likely to be a fixed blockage somewhere in the common parts or in the flow to the "always open" rad.

If this is correct then a magnetic filter will not solve the problem! In any case it may be blocked with non magnetic calcium based debris.

Part of my problem is that I dont know what, if anything, was done to clean the system and what the quality of the water is.

My view is that its the installers responsibility to install a working system and to do whatever is necessary to sort it out.

Thats what I would do but some others are not so helpful.

I would be inclined to measure the flow rate using diff temp at the boiler and then add about 50 grams of sulphamic acid for 3-4 hours on heating and see if that has any effect.

Then to repeat the treatment with 50 grams of citric acid if there was no improvement.

Tony

 

[MaryJane7]

Many thanks to Tony, Dave and Dangermouse for their postings. You really have been everso helpful and I really do appreciate it.

Tony, I've looked up about sulphamic acid and citric acid and can now see that they are limescale descalers, so I'm pretty sure that that is what my installer is going to do next. Sounds promising.

If that doesn't do the trick then I'm going to do as Dave and others have suggested and ask the installer to do a proper powerflush. And fit a 15/60.

As the system will then be drained down anyway, I'll get a spirotrap magnabooster fitted. I see now that this won't help solve the immediate problem but I'm hoping that it might protect the central heating system in the future.

Meanwhile, your help has meant that I've found out about reducing the power output and so now the error message never occurs on cold start up and only sometimes occurs on warm start up. So that's progress!

Will report back when all this is complete.

Every good wish, Mary Jane

 

[Agile]

Tony, I've looked up about sulphamic acid and citric acid and can now see that they are limescale descalers, so I'm pretty sure that that is what my installer is going to do next. Sounds promising.

Every good wish, Mary Jane

No!

The citric acid dissolves metal oxides!

A well done water treatment targets the largest bulk of debris which is the metal oxides. That can often leave large flakes of calcium based debris which have often been loosened and can become mobile and block restrictions such as pump volutes or valves etc. Thats where the bucket test can help.

The sulphamic acid is to target the calcium first which is most likely to be a remaining blockage. However, this is speculation as we dont know the history of any treatment and on my own jobs I have to take the view that anything may or may not have been done because most installers dont really know what they are doing.

Tony

 

[MaryJane7]

First of all, apologies for not reporting back sooner. I've been waiting to make sure that this story is complete before writing my posting.

A quick reminder of the problem. I was getting a S.53 error message with my 10 months old Vaillant EcoTEC418 boiler both on cold and warm start-ups.

Dave, Tony and others on this Forum told me how to overcome the cold start-up S.53 error message by (a) reducing the boiler's maximum heat output from the factory setting of 18kw to 9kw and (b) increasing the pump speed. This worked and just left the warm start-up error message to be sorted.

It was agreed that there must be a physical blockage somewhere in the system. So the installer tried to remove the blockage with chemicals. Unfortunately the S.53 message persisted.

At this point the installer was all ready to start digging up and checking all the pipework piece by piece to try and find the blockage. As a last ditch attempt to avoid this, Vaillant suggested installing an auto by-pass valve, even though there was a three port valve already fitted. This was done.

I can now definetely report back that even with the boiler turned up to 18kw there is no S.53 message on cold start-up (not that I run the boiler like that, I've taken Forum's advice and have a lower setting of 11kw). Also, there have been no S.53 messages on warm start-ups so far.

The blockage in the pipework must still be there but the fitting of the by-pass is a 'work around' that seems Ok at the moment. I'll have to keep my fingers crossed that it continues that way.

Hope this posting is helpful to anyone out there with a similar problem. I can't thank this Forum (particularly Dave and Tony) enough for the help they've given me. All this going backwards and forwards between Vaillant and the installer took ages and it would have been a very cold winter indeed if you hadn't told me how to make my own adjustments.

Thank you

Mary Jane

 

[gas4you]

Glad to have been of help

 

[Agile]

Thanks for reporting back. Only just seen it because I have been away on holiday without sensible web access.

Unfortunately, what has been done has not actually solved the problem and has only hidden the effect of a restricted flow rate.

Whilst I appreciate that it has removed the effect, it has not achieved the engineering solution to the problem. I have to conclude that the main problem has really been your installer. If he was top notch then it would never have been necessary for you to start asking us on here.

Anyway it seems that you are now happy that the error messages have been circumvented. I only wish that I was content to do less than the full resolution of my customer's problems as that would save me much time and effort!

Tony