Annual Service

[idealkrap]

found this forum when looking up problems I've had with my ideal boiler since a bunch of cowboys installed on a warmfront con.

I am due for a service today and want to make sure the guy does the full job --last year he was here for 12 mins and four mins was taken up with bringing his tool case in and replacing various gadgets.

I was reading this thread with responses by a man from Ideal, and his subsequent abusive comments towards other forum members.

I am afraid Ideal, along with Warm front and all their associated installers all tend to treat customers in the same abusive way, warmfront is their bread and butter, as vulnerable members of society, they think they can be abusive and get away with treating us like the inferior products they produce and install.

For the.ideal.man's information our boiler less than 2 years old, has failed consistently has had three replacement parts, and generally is utter rubbish. And is very EXPENSIVE to run. despite claims to the contrary by the guys who come to sign you up for the government grants. We are colder and worse off every month since having a warm front system installed.

Please can someone let me know exactly what checks should be made during the annual service, as when I read the owners and service manual it says lots should be done, but as I said last year was a record 12 mins for service.
Thanks

 

[Agile]

i used to work as an engineer for ideal boilers, you can fit the grey honeywell diverter valve to the old cp hydroblock but you need to change the complete left hand hydroblock, we used to change loads and loads at ideal!! they were s***te. if you contact ideal they will come and do the job for you for a one of charge of 200quid. it is definately the diverter valve, the red headed ones were really poor, they went back to the original grey honeywell valves in 2007. im just glad i dont work there anymore, i moved to a proper boiler company....worcester bosch.

It seems his angry support of Ideal has become too much for him and he has now moved to a "proper boiler company" !

 

[sambotc]

found this forum when looking up problems I've had with my ideal boiler since a bunch of cowboys installed on a warmfront con.

I am due for a service today and want to make sure the guy does the full job --last year he was here for 12 mins and four mins was taken up with bringing his tool case in and replacing various gadgets.

I was reading this thread with responses by a man from Ideal, and his subsequent abusive comments towards other forum members.

I am afraid Ideal, along with Warm front and all their associated installers all tend to treat customers in the same abusive way, warmfront is their bread and butter, as vulnerable members of society, they think they can be abusive and get away with treating us like the inferior products they produce and install.

For the.ideal.man's information our boiler less than 2 years old, has failed consistently has had three replacement parts, and generally is utter rubbish. And is very EXPENSIVE to run. despite claims to the contrary by the guys who come to sign you up for the government grants. We are colder and worse off every month since having a warm front system installed.

Please can someone let me know exactly what checks should be made during the annual service, as when I read the owners and service manual it says lots should be done, but as I said last year was a record 12 mins for service.
Thanks

Hey don't tar us all with the same brush! I'm a warmfront installer and fit there packs with exactly the same attitude as i would my own mothers job, or even my own. We as a company help by not fitting ideal as much as possible, and fit vaillant or baxi instead, although recently we have unfortunatly moved on to worcester

No idea how all these installers are getting away with not fitting TRVs either,we fit and replace them on every job unless the pipework looks iffy.
Namsag come down here and i'll show you loads of warmfront job's with TRVs!

Sam

 

[swbjackson]

I work as an installation engineer for the largest warmfront installation company. I have seen some truly atrocious warmfront installations both by some of our (now-ex) engineers and by other companies that we have been called in to rectify.

In my previous incarnation as a partner/director in the family business I saw a damn site more poor installations.

Unfortunately it's a fact of life that there are some installers out there that have absolutely no pride in their work and will do the same poor standard regardless of customer.


Because such a large number of jobs are done under the warmfront banner even a small percentage of problems is a large number.

Mike

 

[sambotc]

You got a blue van with a reptile on the side?

 

[mickyg]

You got a blue van with a reptile on the side?

I went to a job a while back done by an iguana installer on the side. It was LPG and he was not qualified to do the job. The installation was incredibly poor, and I managed to tidy up most of his shoddy work.. Incorrect wiring, condense pipe poking out the wall onto patio etc.... It seems as a company Iguana are becoming quite famous for shoddy work.

 

[screech]

a reliability factor of 97% for ideal icos/isar/istor - i guess they wait and break down just over a year after installation when out of warranty and the pcb has packed up! customers i visit with them boilers normally have a list of previous call outs as long as your arm, 1 or 2 new pcbs, heat exchangers, electrodes and diverter blocks are the normal problems they complain about.

 

[swbjackson]

You got a blue van with a reptile on the side?

I went to a job a while back done by an iguana installer on the side. It was LPG and he was not qualified to do the job. The installation was incredibly poor, and I managed to tidy up most of his shoddy work.. Incorrect wiring, condense pipe poking out the wall onto patio etc.... It seems as a company Iguana are becoming quite famous for shoddy work.

I hope you reported the installer. I will not do gas work outside the company. I am only registered with the company so it is illegal for me to do PJs in my own time. Not only that but as an employee I have no personal public liability insurance so if anything went wrong I would be up to my neck in it.

Mike

 

[gas4you]

OP, getting back to your post. I would say a good and proper service will take approx 1 hour on an Ideal Isar.

The condensate trap has to be taken off and cleaned thoroughly, not just rinsed through, the sump door taken off and sump cleaned out.

The top half is the fan removed, burner removed, kettle of boiling water poured through HE to clean, more than one if needs be and all electrodes cleaned.

Burner insulation should be carefully inspected as well.

After re-assembling and running, I always FGA test the boiler and leave a print out for the customer along with a print out of the tightness test I have carried out.

Yes Ideal are carp boilers, but they are made 100 times worse by improper, or lack of annual servicing

 

[idealnumber1]

OP, getting back to your post. I would say a good and proper service will take approx 1 hour on an Ideal Isar.

The condensate trap has to be taken off and cleaned thoroughly, not just rinsed through, the sump door taken off and sump cleaned out.

The top half is the fan removed, burner removed, kettle of boiling water poured through HE to clean, more than one if needs be and all electrodes cleaned.

Burner insulation should be carefully inspected as well.

After re-assembling and running, I always FGA test the boiler and leave a print out for the customer along with a print out of the tightness test I have carried out.

Yes Ideal are carp boilers, but they are made 100 times worse by improper, or lack of annual servicing

why do you bother going to ideal jobs if you hate them that much?

 

[idealnumber1]

found this forum when looking up problems I've had with my ideal boiler since a bunch of cowboys installed on a warmfront con.

I am due for a service today and want to make sure the guy does the full job --last year he was here for 12 mins and four mins was taken up with bringing his tool case in and replacing various gadgets.

I was reading this thread with responses by a man from Ideal, and his subsequent abusive comments towards other forum members.

I am afraid Ideal, along with Warm front and all their associated installers all tend to treat customers in the same abusive way, warmfront is their bread and butter, as vulnerable members of society, they think they can be abusive and get away with treating us like the inferior products they produce and install.

For the.ideal.man's information our boiler less than 2 years old, has failed consistently has had three replacement parts, and generally is utter rubbish. And is very EXPENSIVE to run. despite claims to the contrary by the guys who come to sign you up for the government grants. We are colder and worse off every month since having a warm front system installed.

Please can someone let me know exactly what checks should be made during the annual service, as when I read the owners and service manual it says lots should be done, but as I said last year was a record 12 mins for service.
Thanks

you sound like a sad person,have a nicer attitude to your engineers would be a big help

 

[idealnumber1]

OP, getting back to your post. I would say a good and proper service will take approx 1 hour on an Ideal Isar.

The condensate trap has to be taken off and cleaned thoroughly, not just rinsed through, the sump door taken off and sump cleaned out.

The top half is the fan removed, burner removed, kettle of boiling water poured through HE to clean, more than one if needs be and all electrodes cleaned.

Burner insulation should be carefully inspected as well.

After re-assembling and running, I always FGA test the boiler and leave a print out for the customer along with a print out of the tightness test I have carried out.

Yes Ideal are carp boilers, but they are made 100 times worse by improper, or lack of annual servicing

no gas rate or gas pressures?

 

[idealnumber1]

xmas night out yesterday,most importantly don't forget the electrical safety checks

 

[BigBurner]

why do you bother going to ideal jobs if you hate them that much?

It is very easy to hate an Ideal boiler. The bad comments are well justified. The design of them is downright poor. They must get some graduate combustion engineers in to do the design cheaply.

The Minimiser was a complete, expensive dog and how anyone could even think of designing a condensing boiler heat exchanger like that is beyond me. The instructions stated it must be run at 80C and have a return temp of 70C - and this is a condensing boiler!!! The flow through the heat exchanger had to be around 60% of full flow so when TRVs on all rads except one, the by-pass had to adjusted so most of the time it was opened and was not condensing. The burner was upfiring - how dumb!!! Condensing boilers have very high efficiencies at very low return temperatures, and this dog could not do it. What a screw up!!!!

It had an efficiency not much higher than a non-condensing boiler and cost the earth. House builders fitted them because it raised their SAP count (it was a condensing boiler - just) and meant no insulation in walls or whatever. I only ever saw them on new builds. They stopped selling around 4 years ago.

Now don't get me on that awful combi with the pipe-in-pipe heat exchanger. What another dog!!!!

 

[idealnumber1]

maybe so but i bet he still charges a few quid ti fix em,