Worcester 350 Fires Up - Shuts down - no reset required

[Richard10002]

Worcester 350 Combi:

The symptom is fairly simple:

as soon as heat is demanded by either the heating system, or the hot water system, the boiler fires up, but shuts down within a second or so.

Without resetting anything, trying again with either the heating system or hot water results in the same event... fires up for a second, then shuts down.

CH engineer suggests replacing PCB at £400... this seems very expensive, when PCB's seem to cost around £70+/-, and he hasnt given a reason for his diagnosis.

Any ideas welcomed

Richard

 

[EliteHeat]

he hasnt given a reason for his diagnosis.

Why don't you ask him?

 

[Richard10002]

he hasnt given a reason for his diagnosis.

Why don't you ask him?

I will when I can speak with him. I'm getting my feedback via my letting agent who merely gave me his suggestion and quote.

In the meantime, having had several misdiagnoses on various boilers from various engineers, it's always handy to have some second opinions from people who dont have a vested interest.

Cheers

Richard

 

[Slugbabydotcom]

CH engineer suggests replacing PCB at £400... this seems very expensive, when PCB's seem to cost around £70+/-,

PCBs are quite expensive on these but you could find a little cheaper if you shopped about on the net.

I was playing with one the friday before christmas. The customer just bit the bullet so they could be warm over christmas otherwise I would have recommended a renewal in this case. I justified the replacement of 2 of the pcbs to get it working.

On the same boiler a thermistor caused similar problems to those you describe a year earlier. Hopefully the guy has ruled out this and other probable causes [fan, flue, APS & flame sensing] before trying to get you to throw this much money at it.

Spending anything over £250- £300 ish on a boiler of this age would be money better spent towards a new boiler IMO

 

[Richard10002]

Spending anything over £250- £300 ish on a boiler of this age would be money better spent towards a new boiler IMO

I think that's the way I'm leaning.... having searched the net there seem to be 2 PCB's which probably cost about £200 or so.

Thanks for the input.

Richard

 

[Slugbabydotcom]

As I recall the one on the right is a 'piggy back' job ie. 2 pcbs stuck together but it comes as one pcb

 

[Richard10002]

As I recall the one on the right is a 'piggy back' job ie. 2 pcbs stuck together but it comes as one pcb

Spoke to the engineer and the quote is £200 to supply and fit the PCB.... says he is 99% certain it's the PCB, but the fan sounds noisy, so that could be next to go, and so on.

I've taken the plunge and he's going to fit a Worcester Junior 24i for £1400 - small 1 bed flat.

Thanks for the advice.... I think I knew the answer before posting here, but it's helped to rationalise the expenditure.

Cheers

Richard

 

[ChrisR]

Careful, the 350 is 35kW, the 24 is 24kW. You'll notice the difference if you have a good shower. Perhaps 28-30kW would be a better compromise.