Worcester 240 dead?

Our Worcester 240 (about 10 years old) has just ended an amazing spell of trouble free running by going spectacularly wrong.

It started by firing up the central heating yesterday although, at the control box, it is still off and has been all summer. We could only stop the central heating when we turned the switch on the boiler itself to HW only. It then gave off a strong burning smell and smoke started rising from the diverter (? - black box front LHS hidden behind the drop down cover). We switched the boiler off completely which stopped the smoking but now trying to turning it back on there seems to be no life at all.

A plumber came round and said we need to strip it down and replace a number of the electrical parts (diverter, one of the boards etc). He said they would only understand the problem fully once this was done and we would be better off replacing the whole boiler than throw good money after bad.

Does this advice sound sensible? Any advice appreciated?

The diverter might be leaking onto the switch - no big deal.

The "faulty pcb" diagnosis might be a guess?
Whichever, the boiler could be mended for a fraction of the cost of a new one.

If I were you Surrey, I'd contact ChrisR by email through his contact - you might be local, he knows his stuff and appears reasonable(I've read a lot posters on here btw).

Thanks Noodlz & ChrisR. We're getting a 2nd opinion from a Worcester-Bosch technician. Seems an expensive way to go about it but at least I'll get a reliable opinion.

It also turns out that although I have 22mm pipe out of the gas meter, somewhere behind the kitchen units it switches to 15mm and apparently you can't fit a new combi condensing boiler to 15mm pipe? I guess I'll check this with the guy coming round but yet more expense.

Surrey said:

Thanks Noodlz & ChrisR. We're getting a 2nd opinion from a Worcester-Bosch technician. Seems an expensive way to go about it but at least I'll get a reliable opinion.

It also turns out that although I have 22mm pipe out of the gas meter, somewhere behind the kitchen units it switches to 15mm and apparently you can't fit a new combi condensing boiler to 15mm pipe? I guess I'll check this with the guy coming round but yet more expense.

Click to expand...

depends on the size of the boiler

WB greenstars must be fitted to 22mm as a minimum

bet you have some working pressure issues there,