Bad repair experience

[RickH]

Just thought worth re-telling of last week's boiler failure.

My boiler - Baxi Barcelona Heat Only, would start run for 15-20 mins or so then lock-out, it would then not reset for at least 15mins .. then would short run again.

It is under contract, and a local GasSafe engineer arrived next day.

He emptied the condensate trap, nothing else found on the boiler, left him to it for a while the returned and found him turning the static pressure up (way too high) on the heating loop side of my thermal store ... absolutely nothing to do with the boiler side issue. Pressure in the primary loop was fine and displayed as such.
There are clear labels on the 4" gauges stating what pressure should be ... he then advised no problem, I'll dump excess pressure .. and operated the pressure release valve on hot water loop (mains pressure) .. I let him run for a while, and after about 4th jug full drain off, and him advising it's taking a while to drop, I explained he can't actually drain the incoming mains ..... and released the pressure in the heating loop myself using the correct valve.

He then advised its a PCB fault on the boiler, he will report it back to the contract company.
I tried to reason that as it fails when it gets warm ( every time) could it be something other than the control board, he disagreed.

The next day contract company called me and as the engineer had advised it was a complex circuit board .fault and they had passed it to Baxi direct. Sounds like he bottled it ... did not have a clue on the boiler fault, or his abilities to resolve.

Took a while to get Baxi guy ... but when he arrived, was impressed ......

He agreed with my reasoning that lock-out most likely due to overheating, he opened up and pointed out discolourationof the bottom left of the burner door, Proceeded to remove the door and found the bottom left screw was loose, and once the door was off. the seal in that area crumbled away like dust.
Inside the ceramic burner had come apart ...... this combination was leaking heat into the casing, and causing the overheat .... electrode wiring also looked damaged by heat.

He fitted new burner, new door with seal & electrodes (had all the parts in his van) .... full emissions test, all 100%


The purpose of this post is to let others know how professional & skilled the Baxi direct guy was.
The other guy while being GasSafe registered .... gave no confidence whatsoever.


(Now I have to find a new boiler, before the next failure - separate thread)

 

[bernardgreen]

The other guy while being GasSafe registered .... gave no confidence whatsoever

An acquaintance had a similar experience, the person was GasSafe registered to work on domestic gas heating systems but was out of his depth with the heating system that the boiler was part of.

 

[Gasguru]

Being Gas-Safe registered is no indication of your competence in boiler and heating system repairs...it's purely to assess your ability to work safe with gas.
No sensible boiler repair eng. would waste their time looking at a Barcelona...it was a dog the moment it was designed back in the 90s and is nothing but trouble. The fact that an insurance company will even entertain it shows their poor management...and then to sub it out to an individual working for peanuts...

 

[ianmcd]

Personnaly first thing I would have looked at was the burner, as already said surprised it is still going, really poor boilers

 

[RickH]

The boiler was upgraded after 1 yr to BAXI 100HE spec., do you class that as another not to be worked on .... asking as my Fathers has a 100HE in his house.

Interesting your comment "No sensible boiler repair eng." bit unfair, when a professional, competent BAXI guy did come and work on it. He was was certainly sensible.
I accept that technology has moved on, but at the time of building the house the Baxi Barcelona was the recommended boiler to use ... and that was from the heating design company ... and they were not supplying the boiler.
This I guess is part of the problem with boilers ... you go to Heating Experts, they advise (or specify) what to use, I as 'Joe Public' go with that professional paid for advice.

 

[Gasguru]

Yep the Baxi 100HE is the same junk....any boiler with that heat exchanger design is flawed. It's cropped up in numerous models and it's only recently Baxi have finally killed it off.
Baxi are not unique...Ideal had it with the Isar/Icos heat exchanger....launched with several major issues but it kept cropping up in different models...and Ideal are still screwing over the public by selling the floor standing Mexico range...it's so bad they only put the legal minimum warranty of 2 years on it.

The Baxi eng. works for Baxi so of course he's seen 1000s of them and can fix them blindfolded and he has no choice but to look at it.
Manufacturers also keep known design faults/problems to themselves and it's extremely rare for technical bulletins to be issued ie. us non manufacturer repair eng.s are on our own.
However, failed burners and door seals are so common everyone's aware of it unless you're new to the trade.
Also remember that parts to a manufacturer are peanuts with nothing more than £50 so throwing a ton of bits at a problem is easy.

Often insurance companies will let their own contracted staff have a few goes at repairing a boiler but have a deal with a manufacturer to go in.

Corrupt government schemes keep these models going, and of course installers are paid (either with cash or vouchers) to promote brands so you are rarely getting unbiased advice.

Baxi had no experience of condensing boilers or of aluminium or premix burner design...and when you introduce so many new pioneering concepts into a single boiler it's bound to be a failure.
Few manufacturers have a clean record...did I mention the Ecotec and the dozen design faults

 

[RickH]

Thanks for the explanation ... they did change out the Heat Exchanger and flue about 3 years ago ... in fact, the only original parts of mine left are the backplate, outer case and on-off / temp switch.
I was amazed at your comment on Mexico, didn't know they still made them ... I put one in my previous house, which would be 40 years ago - originally as LPG then converted it to mains gas .... had a humungous cast iron heat exchanger. remember having to get the metal tie rod welded it had corroded and snapped - causing it to leak between 2 halves of the heat exchanger.

What is your view on the current Baxi 830 Heat ... the Baxi guy advised its a completely new design much better, probably why they will now give a 10yr warranty on it.

 

[muggles]

What is your view on the current Baxi 830 Heat ... the Baxi guy advised its a completely new design much better, probably why they will now give a 10yr warranty on it.

Stay well away. Plenty of people having issues with them and they're horrendously expensive to repair if they break out of warranty. The burner, fan, gas valve, and PCB are all one part, so if any one of those breaks you have to buy the whole lot for around £400 plus fitting.

 

[RickH]

OK ... I'll put a separate post up about what boiler to consider - welcome your input.

Just posted subject line is "New Boiler choice"

 

[ianmcd]

OK ... I'll put a separate post up about what boiler to consider - welcome your input.

Or just read the thousands of existing posts about the same thing increasing daily

 

[RickH]

Or just read the thousands of existing posts about the same thing increasing daily

Not found a post that answers specific Q on running a heat-only boiler to the pressurised thermal store, other than my own.
However, fully understand if you do not wish to respond to the post if it is something you have done previously.

 

[Sonic70]

Andrew have baxi put that part in the rest of the 800 range.

Victor

 

[Gasguru]

The Mexico of yesteryear was a very reliable simple cast iron boiler that would last 20 years plus. By carrying on the name the manufacturer can con a prospective owner that they are buying yet
another reliable product but nothing could be further from the truth...the current Mexico is the same junk that was in the Isar/Icos and variants but in floor standing variant.

The 800 Heat only is a Remeha boiler re-badged. As mentioned it has an unreliable module that comprises of several boiler components and it's ££££££ if not replaced under warranty.
It's scandalous that an eco product requires a whole module replacing for perhaps a single fault. From what I've read on the European gas forums Baxi Group have relented and in the Netherlands have
been forced to sell individual parts after pressure.

The 800 Combis are an entirely different boiler contruction and generally ok.

Most manufacturers have a real mixed bag of boilers....some robust and reliable and some absolute basket cases with no end of muppet installers that promote them.
Baxi do have a fine history of churning out turds...a whole plethora of models 10 years ago used a new self adjusting combustion system (Gas Adaptive) brought in from an Italian company....and that also turned out to be a turkey.
Unfortunately for the public it's largely a lottery what boiler you get....if you do the research, download the manuals from the installer section of the websites you can at least see what's inside the box.

 

[Sonic70]

Thanks gasguru for answering my baxi 800 question.