Worcester Bosch Highflow 400 RSF - no HW when CH on

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Hi, I've got a problem that when the CH is on there is no HW when a demand is made. Turn the CH off and it's fine but they won't work together. If I do leave CH and HW on together the over temp cut out (on RHS) intermittently trips off.

I've had quite a few problems with this boiler which is now 7 years old. W-Bosch were out this January for a similar problem and changed the heat exchanger, electronic timer and diverter valve and said that the boiler needs and inhibitor which I duly did. X400 for 3 weeks followed by X100.... And quite a few hundred quid lighter :eek: in pocket all was well til October :(

Looking at similar posts for other boilers and a reply from Corgiman I'd guess the problem might be a diverter valve (AGAIN) but I'm getting pretty miffed that it's so unreliable and thinking that I might be chucking good money after bad. My options are to diagnose and fix or bite the bullet and chuck it out and replace with a Vaillant or something similar.

Any views on this from some of you in the know would be really appreciated. Cheers.
 
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:( We've had the same problem with ours for over a year. We've had 4 different engineers out but no-one has been able to suss out the issue. We find that we have to
1) turn the heating on,
2) turn the hot tap on so water is flowing
3) turn the heating off and then switch the HW on.

Turning the CH on once the water's heating can be done but it takes a lot of the heat out of the water.
 
Call out WB again as if its the exact same problem then there parts will be under warranty.

however Could be a dodgey DHW flow switch or the PCB not moving the divertor valve.

Those boilers are quite complex but give great performance.

Why not get a contract from BG. They will fix including parts and labour as long as you tell them its broken before they come or do a one off fixed price repair for £170.
 
Hi Robo5000

I got so fed up with it that I replaced it with a Vaillant 837. Cost £2600 installed including a new 28mm gas supply (the old one was 22mm). The old one had cost me over £1000 to try and fix and because it was unreliable no one would put it on contract.

Had the Vaillant 2 months now and I'm really pleased I changed. Quieter, more efficient, cheaper to run, smaller - and it doesn't look like a prop from Dr Who.

Needless to say I'm very unhappy with Worcester Bosch and what seems to be a badly designed product and engineers who seem to dogmatically rely on the fault finding manual rather than applying common sense - When a part's been changed 3 times in 2 years perhaps its something else causing it???

Good luck
 
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Hi Robo5000

The old one had cost me over £1000 to try and fix and because it was unreliable no one would put it on contract.

Good luck

I would have come to Oxford and fixed it for less that that! It sounds as if it was a PCB problem! Was that ever changed?

As long as its working and correctly installed then I think that BG will cover any boiler as long as the spares are available.

At least you now have a nice new condensing boiler!

Tony
 
I am looking forward to reading a post from Tony where he says he would have fixed the boiler for more money. :cool:
 
I have exactly the same problem and the BG engineer has now been out three times and replaced different parts each time including the PCB and the diverter - does your experience suggest that they will never find the real cause of the problem?
 
Its easy for big firms' engineers to just change a few parts to see if that solves the problem.

A good independent will not charge a customers for parts which are not required so has to take considerable care to correctly diagnose the fault first time. Because of the way that boiler parts interact thats not always quite so easy.

I am looking forward to reading a post from Tony where he says he would have fixed the boiler for more money. :cool:

There would be little point in telling anyone that we would have been more expensive although where someone has had a particularly cheap repair I sometimes do.

Because we do most things at a fixed price then we are expensive if its a simple repair and very good value if its complicated. A "repair" last month was only the supply switch being "turned off" by a suitcase stored there so I just charged our lower service fee rather than the repair fee. In London the major time is taken driving to the address rather than spent repairing boilers.

Tony
 
HI

I've got a Worcester Bosch Highflow 400 Electronic hsf combi boiler. It's 4 years old and came with the house I bought about 18 months ago. I've had a various engineers out to fix it and no-one has been able to help. I've been without heating since new years day and am really suffering.

The light for the central heating on the boiler flashes all the time. I've reset it many times and will get hot water for about 2 mins before it shuts off and starts flashing. On occasions like once every 24 hours the heating will work for about 30 mins and then shut off. I'm not an engineer but it seems that the pump, ignition are all working. One of the engineers said it could be a build up of sludge. Another one said it was inadequate air pressure although once he had solved this problem it immediately broke down.

Any ideas on what the problem might be would be appreciated.
 
I have had three similar sounding faults on Worcester boilers recently whicvh turned out to be the PCB. They were not exactly the same model though.

In one case disconnecting the CH sensor would get the boiler to work until the system reached the set temperature.

Tony
 
Hi Tony

Many thanks for your reply. I spoke to a technical advisor from Worcester Bosch yesterday and they diagnosed a possible heat exchanger problem. Is that something different to the PCB problem you diagnosed? Is it another problem? It does seem when the heating works on occasions that it reaches a certain temperature and then goes off. But I'm not an engineer just a layman.

Thanks Ben
 
HI Tony

I've just had another engineer in who says my boiler needs a service and won't do that unless I book that from them. I'm under a service agreement from Homeserve that subcontract these people but still have time to pull out of the policy as I'm within the 14 day cooling off period. The Engineer today did what the first Engineer carried out which was repressuring and this time a bit of `cleaning'. The boiler has been working for 40 mins so far. Worcester-Bosch and yourself point to something much more specific and this engineer wouldn't be drawn on any specific issues just saying without a full service he couldn't say what the problem might be! I'm going to try and pull out of my policy today and if possible claim some sort of reimbursement but not hopeful. I have a worcester-bosch engineer booked for tomorrow and they always do a full service on any call out. Do you think this is the sensible path to take? Interestingly, the engineer that came `round didn't want me to watch or make any conversation or talk technicalities.

My feeling is they're just out to make money and don't care about customers.
 
I am very worried that you seem to be taking out service agreements, have their engineers round and then cancel!

You will have to pay for the repair somehow!

Homeserve mainly use their own staff but perhaps subcontract in some areas or at busy times.

Their own staff seem to be some of the worst in the industry!

If your boiler needed a service then it would be sensible to do that first and then see if any problem still persists.

Tony
 
HI Tony

Many thanks for your reply. I'm not in the habit of taking out service agreements and cancelling them. Infact, this is the first time I have done such a thing. The company Homeserve sub-contracted too sent two engineers around on different occasions both of which did the same thing which was repressurise the boiler with a consequent break down occuring the same time following the visit either immediately or 2 hours later.

As far as paying for the repair sometime Tony I've already paid over £600 with nothing to show for it. My service was included in the policy I took out by Homeserve. I could see engineers visiting my property constantly with the same result so this is why I cancelled and changed my policy and company.

I signed up with Worcester-Bosch today who are sending an engineer tomorrow and went through their diagnosis team over the phone who say it could be the heat exchanger and they will have this on their van. I mentioned `a friend' said there could be a PCB problem and they carry 98% of the parts on the van normally except for the Heat Exchanger which they now have for my visit. They will carry out a full service on the machine and the work is guaranteed for 30 days. If they can't solve the problem it's handed over to a senior technician. I'm figuring they designed this machine and have engineers specially trained to work on only their systems so logically they should be able to fix it.

Thanks again Tony and wish me luck for tomorrow.
 
We dont seem to hear many complaints about W-B staff engineers.

But then we dont get much feedback on what they do.

I suppose if you replace enough parts then statistically they will get a high success rate.

Let us know what happens and particularly what they replace.

Tony
 

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