HELP - Boiler keeps turning itself off & not coming back

I have a Worcester 19/24 cbi boiler controlled by a Drayton Lifestyle timer.

Currently the timer is set to ONCE so heating/hw comes on at 6am and stays on till 10:30pm.

What seems to happen, intermittently but strangely on cold days is that the boiler keeps turning itself off. So at 6am the timer tells the boiler to come on: it does and the burner starts.
What then happens is between 10:30-11:30am the house reaches it's desired temperature (or at least the thermostat in the hall confirms the heating is at say 20-22 degrees as known by audible click).

The problem is that the temperature then drops and as an example right now the heating has been off for 3 hours and the temperature is about 16 degrees (thinking about putting gloves on). What usually happens is that after 3.5 to 4.5 hours of this the burner will come on on its own accord.

The Lifestyle shows as ON (ONCE) and the Boiler Demand light is on but the burner just doesn't come on despite moving the thermostat up. i also tried turning off/on - resetting the timer switch etc.

The problem is that this was installed about 2 yrs ago - last yr the installers came out and replaced the Drayton timer unit but this was at the beginning of Spring and the onset of warmer weather so we never knew whether it worked.

I've rung them again and aside from them going out of business (but still operating to some degree) they say I need to get the Boiler looked at and as its now out of warranty they can't help: I tried the "its hasn't worked properly since you installed it" to no avail. I rang Worcester and they quoted something like £200 to come and have a look at it.

Now I don't mind paying the money, especially as something needs to be done my kids are walking around indoors with ski gear on! However, I'd thought I'd ask on here if anyone has any ideas as to what the problem might be: it may not be the boiler hence £200 down the drain.

The radiators all have thermostats on them and as I mentioned the main thermostat is in the hall downstairs.

Any help or advice much appreciated.

One possibility is that your room stat is incorrectly wired iecommon & switched live transposed so even though the stat shuts off as it should yhe anticipator is still being heated so stat stays warm but house cools down (quite a common problem)

weareleeds said:

One possibility is that your room stat is incorrectly wired iecommon & switched live transposed so even though the stat shuts off as it should yhe anticipator is still being heated so stat stays warm but house cools down (quite a common problem)

Click to expand...

I don't want to count my chickens but I think it's fixed and what you wrote led me to the answer. So thanks.

Firstly, I am so non-diy that I really didn't have much of a clue what the above all meant but on Saturday when it went off again I started looking around. Firstly, I took the power off to the house and recycled it to see if that kicked the boiler into life: it didn't. I then took the power off again and took a look at the thermostat in the hall.

There was a yellow/green cable to the far left (neutral) - brown next to that (live) and then on the far right a blue cable. Upon closer inspection I noticed that some of the exposed wire on the blue cable wasn't inserted correctly and was touching the metal bit (???) that the rest of the cable was plugged into.

Now this may be just coincidence but as soon as I had reseated the blue wire correctly with nothing exposed and then put the power on - the boiler fired instantly. More importantly it stayed on for the rest of Saturday and has remained on all day today.

I don't quite understand how the above could instigate my problem unless it was linked to what you were describing and I may be a bit previous in my hope that it's fixed it but at the moment I'm very grateful to you.

Thanks

I thought my problem was solved but the heating went off a week or so ago again. What I did then was replace the "room stat" - once again the heating worked for a week or so but once again today it has switched itself off.

So far the room stat and the LP522 timer unit have been changed.

I took a look at the "ACL Lifestyle Wiring Centre" box.

On the inside of the lid there are two wiring type diagrams: one called BIFLO and once called TWINZONE. I have no clue what either of these means but guessing that twinzone implies some sort of multiple heating zones I guessed it wasn;t that. Regardless, looking at what was on the wiring diagrams for either the wiring that has been implemented bears virtually no resemblance to it??

Does anyone know how I can verify if the wiring in place is correct? Or any other suggestions gratefuly received.

Hi gcn504,

I know this is an ancient thread, but did you ever find a solution?

I have a very similar problem and assumed it was a problem with the timer. I replaced the Lifestyle LP241 with a new LP722 but I still have the same problem.

In my case I can get the boiler to fire back up by switching off the power to the timer/boiler and switching back on.

In this recent cold snap it has been happening almost daily.

Cheers, Mike.

VonPit said:

Hi gcn504,

I know this is an ancient thread, but did you ever find a solution?

I have a very similar problem and assumed it was a problem with the timer. I replaced the Lifestyle LP241 with a new LP722 but I still have the same problem.

In my case I can get the boiler to fire back up by switching off the power to the timer/boiler and switching back on.

In this recent cold snap it has been happening almost daily.

Cheers, Mike.

Click to expand...

In the end I signed up for a British Gas service contract and had the fault fixed that way. Although I cant be more specific it turned out to be an internal part that quite commonly deteriorates over time. It was replaced and I havent had the problem since.
If I can find the paperwork I'll try and find if the part is referenced.
Sorry I couldnt be more help

Hi guys
I have a similar problem what a pain this is
S plan, vokera boiler, lifestyle lp 241 programmer
Hw & ch come on together 6am
Hw goes off timer at6:30
Ch should be on all day but instantly also cuts out before room stat satisfied
Can bring back on by turning off fused switch beside timer
Sometimes systems behaves ok
Other times house goes cold as ch just decides to stay off for some reason
System clearly confused as twice ch just stays on - once even when timers were off!
Hw itself seems fine
Boiler serviced ok
Heating engineers says motorised valves responding
Ok but not multimeter tested
He said thought it was timer- I might be happy to try this but not quite convinced re intermittent nature of fault
But it does seem electric
Do we have a definitive answer to this ch problem I see affects quote a lot of us?
Great to share answers as even the experts not always sure, I hate these kind of problems.....
Cheers to all who offer to help

I dont see a heating expert who just "thinks" something but will not fix it as anything of an expert!

Or did you just call him for a free diagnosis?

i guess the heating engineer made recommendation to change timer as that's where he felt fault lies; i suppose without the replacement he guessed reasonable for customer to source and switch....
certainly not a free diagnosis - cost me £85 - !!!
now i feel a bit closer to the truth - the ch definately is going off incorrectly, when the hw timer am session completes (agree makes think programmer fault), but not quite got head around other times
i'm trying the hw on once as the ch is also on once
options then if fixed to leave like that or bit the bullet and get replacement programmer (its just i hate getting new bits which i aint 100% certain will fix problem
cheers for any pointers from anyone who has been there and done that with a fix!!!!!!!!!!
simon

If the motorised valves in your S plan are moving across for HW and CH demands respectively, then this rules out the timer/programmer.

If the HW always works then this rules out the HW motorised valve, and the boiler itself - which of course has no idea whether it is responding to HW or CH.

So the CH motorised valve may not be fully opening on occasion, this would cause the microswitch not to 'make'.

The way to test this is to wait for the CH to pack up again, then run some HW off the cylinder and select HW and CH on the programmer. If the CH motor valve end switch is not 'making' but the valve is partially opening the rads will heat up again.

In this scenario the solution is to replace the CH motorised valve. NB: The brass valve body beneath the actuator should be turnable by hand with no tools, if it is stiff you must replace the whole thing, which is a drain down.

Simond - my thanks some stars on here - the power of the internet
my self reasoning after google research initially suspected the ch motorised valve - i could well believe sometimes sticking - but odd how it does that when hw goes off programme instantly the ch goes off too...
i think i can say already that when ch goes off / sticks off, it will come back on if hw is summoned
is it that the rads heat up then as ch port valve, being stuck part open, allows flow thru system?
our house isnt that old - 10 years - i think the valve will be ok, fancy a good try to replace the motor valve and check the spindle is free first before getting in another engineer....feels like

ok - i think cracked it
the ch has gone off and isnt responding to room stat switch up temp
(the hw is off)
in the airing cupboard can hear mild whiring noise - i bet ch motorised valve trying to get across but stuck
so switched off system isolator switch power
went back to ch motorised valve - and worked the lever against resistance a few times, trying to see if it freed...
switched system back on and hey presto - ch came on
i'll try this a few times
if fault recurs will go for new motorised valve with confidence i hope all Huston we have a fix !

Hi
I'm new to this forum, have just signed up but sounds like I'm in good company already... we have had no hot water all day and the CH is not coming through to our rads.

Last November we power flushed the house and got a good result, warm rads all round. Then after a couple of months the rads were not heating up evenly any more and some were heating more than others.

Got a plumber from www.rated.com who changed the 2-port valve and the timer. This worked ok for a while. Then a few weeks ago I sat by our boiler when it came on (timer triggers it on ok) and noticed that pilot starts up for 2 mins, then off for 2 mins, then on, then off and this goes on and on so when the CH has been on for an hour we still don't get warm rads at all. It takes an hour at least for the heat to come through and on some days it doesn't come through at all. When I called the same plumber to say these problems he didn't want to know.

On Wednesday we had not HW or CH all day even though it was on constant. Now we don't have regular hot water or heating. The HW has been on constant today and is less than tepid. I've turned the CH off to auto to see what it does when it's supposed to come on later today, in case it works properly.

So please, can anyone help? It's very frustrating and horrible to live in a cold house .

I wish someone could give me the definitive answer, it's all ifs and maybes but I just want to know where the problem lies.

Thank you guys, hope to hear soon.

It's possible you could have debris in the pump, or that the pump is failing. Either way it sounds like a low flow situation.

As you are a new poster to this forum, i will explain that you should always start a new thread rather than 'hi-jacking' an old one

Katie! lousey ch an dhw - hell!!!
only a few ideas / suggestions from a non-expert - perhaps to quiz a plumber who visits
i think yours must be an intermittent blockage problem
have you tried upping the speed on pump to max?
try feeling the pipes in airing cupboard - you will need to know in and out flows - start with the one going in near bottom of tank, and entering 36 inches above - the heating coil pipe
then follow others back - the main other branch off being for ch
see if hot either side of motorised valves etc
may give some more clues
good luck
simon