Heatline Expert - anybody?

I have a 3 year old Heatline S30 combi. I have breakdown cover with D&G. Four weeks ago the boiler stopped working - diagnostic LED indicated "Check ionisation probe or gas pressure". Called D&G they sent their sub-contractor down to have a look 3 days later. He came along and said he needed to order some parts. Over two weeks later the parts arrived. They replaced the parts but the problem is still there. Now they have ordered more parts and I am waiting in the cold for them to arrive (probably next week). They've replaced the PCB, the Gas valve, the seal on the burner chamber casing and the ionisation probe. Now they are waiting on a "harness". (the strange thing is that the boiler will come on and work for maybe 1 - 5 hours before stopping again)

Has anybody seen this on a heatline boiler? - the way things are going I could be waiting till xmas whilst D&G replace every part in the boiler.

The problem is that those breakdown companies contract for the work at very low rates and can only afford to employ less experienced people who just change a few parts and hope it will fix the problem.

You should complain violently about their inability to correctly diagnose the fault.

Try asking for compensation for inconvenience up to the cost of the annual fee you pay them.

Tony

Just in case any body is interested it turned out to be the wiring not the

PCB
Ionisation Probe
Gas valve
Seal (which took two weeks to arrive)
Overheat thermostats x 2

All of which were swapped out. The whole exercise cost more than the boiler (almost) and five weeks of no heating or hot water and all because of a few frazzled wires. Don't gas engineers diagnose problems rather than just swap out parts starting with the most expensive one first ("eh its yer PCB mate - its blown!") in the hope of finding the cause of a fault. Corgi registered indeed!! Means nothing!!

The problem is in essence that you have got a very cheap boiler which is being repaired by guys that work for very little money, often subcontractors of a contractor. They get paid per job so they want to get out as soon as possible. As for corgi registered meaning nothing, did you check the corgi card of every chap that came along? Did you check the corgi card of the engineer who services the boiler every year?

When do people ever ask fo a corgi card, i've never been asked for I.D. and have been in 100's of houses.

very scary thought.

I have the same problem and british Gas is still looking for the fault. Please could you tell me what exactly was the problem with the wiring???

cz4802 said:

Just in case any body is interested it turned out to be the wiring not the

PCB
Ionisation Probe
Gas valve
Seal (which took two weeks to arrive)
Overheat thermostats x 2

All of which were swapped out. The whole exercise cost more than the boiler (almost) and five weeks of no heating or hot water and all because of a few frazzled wires. Don't gas engineers diagnose problems rather than just swap out parts starting with the most expensive one first ("eh its yer PCB mate - its blown!") in the hope of finding the cause of a fault. Corgi registered indeed!! Means nothing!!

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cz4802 said:

Corgi registered indeed!! Means nothing!!

Click to expand...

It does mean something, just not what you presume it to!

just cause he is corgi registered doesnt mean that engineers no everything about gas appliances and can fault find on the spot. the problem with most combi boilers is one fault that appears could be upto 3 or 4 different problems and tbh with the lower price range of boilers at the minute it is more than likely the PCB.

But i keep seeing people posting on here that corgi registered my a*** and comments like that.
What it really means that they are safe and compentent to work on gas appliances. Not that they are a walking machine. And if half the engineers worked to small silly detail like if you don't have the instruction booklet with the appliance you cant work on it. then i reckon over 1/2 the households would be stuffed.

anyway rant over

I also had a Heatline S30 boiler with this same intermittent fault.

I switch the boiler on and it will ignite and pump water to the rads but after 5-10 mins the gas will cut out, the boiler then tries to ignite again it sparks but does not ignite. It tries to ingite a few times and then the "check burner ionisation probe" LED flashes. If you switch it off and on again it will work as before for 5-10 mins.

I employed a Corgi (now Gas Safe) registered plumber who immediately concluded it was the gas valve. This was duly replaced but the same fault occured immediately.

We were given a choice of beginning to swap more parts, wiring loom, PCB, electrodes but with no guarantee of success or fitting a new boiler at a cost of £2000.

We have subsequently been getting various quotes and advice. As the boiler had effectively been written off I decided to have a look at the internals myself. I flipped down the control panel and opened it up to check the wires from the ionisation probe. All the wires, and chipsets looked ok, so I flipped over the PCB to inspect the solder joints. Whilst nothing looked too obvious there were a couple of dry joints. I resoldered these joints (one was to the back of the ionisation probe plug!) and closed the control panel. SUCCESS! the boiler now seems to be working perfectly fine but I will keeping a close eye on it for the next month or so.

After reading a number of forums this seems to be a very common fault with the Heatline S24 / S30. A number of other people have also identified this as an electrical / wiring issue - so my advice is check this first and save yourself a small fortune!!

hi there everyone,

bagelly states its an electrical fault on the heatline combi, I have the same boiler with the same fault and i am currently waiting for the dreaded gas valve part to arrive. Having read the comments on here it fills me with dread that im about to shell out £150 of my hard earned on something that probably is not going to fix the boiler. bagelly says he resoldered some dry joints on the pcb, has anyone got any more detail of this process? my missus is going spare, any help greatly appreciated.

I am sorry but I cannot help you personally as you are too far away but I can remind you that YOU are the customer!

You should not expect to pay for ANY parts which dont fix the fault.

In my view when the new gas valve fails to fix the problem you should NOT pay anything.

Its not your fault if the engineer cannot diagnose the fault. Thats HIS problem and not YOUR problem.

You would have been better off getting British Gas on a fixed price basis at about £180.

Please keep us informed. You should really have started your own thread though!

There are too many people being taken advantage of and its about time customers stood up for their rights!

I would NEVER even think of charging anyone for a part which did not fix the problem! Diagnose first and fix second!

Tony

hello,

If you don't have any luck with this guy/part then you can contact me. I am a heatline service agent based in Hartlepool.

you can find my email in my profile

Agile said:

The problem is that those breakdown companies contract for the work at very low rates and can only afford to employ less experienced people who just change a few parts and hope it will fix the problem.

You should complain violently about their inability to correctly diagnose the fault.

Try asking for compensation for inconvenience up to the cost of the annual fee you pay them.

Tony

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why violently? what the hell would that achive, most small companies go the other way if you get on your high horse ie tell u to f off

onlyfitidealboilers said:

why violently? what the hell would that achive, most small companies go the other way if you get on your high horse ie tell u to f off

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That was during 2007 and in relation to a large maintaining company perhaps now Homeserve.

They are large enough to be expected to receive complaints and act on them to improve their service.

I agree that with small companies the only solution is to boycott them.

Tony