Baxi Barcelona Lockout

[uncleben]

BAXI barcelona
I have installed many of them and encountered many problems. Baxi do not honour thier garantees and this boiler has destroyed thier reputation.
The main problem with the unit is the condensate trap and this screaming.
Due to imperfections in the castings of the heat exchanger , localised hot spots occur which causes a screaming noise through whats known as kettling. this in turn oxidises the heat exchanger surface which leads to the deposits of aluminium oxide in the condensate trap. eventually this will lead to a hole in the heat exchanger. Baxi will deny this but its true.
I have changed two of them which flooded my customers houses free of charge. The other problem with lock out is caused by the condensate trap
in that when the levell of water is about to discharge , condensation on the top surface of the trap makes contact with the electrical probe and locks out the boiler. this is a safety device in case the condaensate drain gets blocked. This problem is exasperated by two other design faults.
The first is the oxidation of the heat exchanger and the resultant oxide sludge which buils up in the trap, this can get invaded by micro orginismns creating a sort of jelly which gums the trap up. The second problem is that unless the working pressure at the gas valve is at 18.75mb
the boiler will suffer from explosive ignition which causes a sudden increase in pressure within the trap soaking the sensor probs resulting in lock out. A simple remedy for the problems associated with the trap would be to lower the central deviding plate in the trap and thus lowere the average levell of water. Again dont even consider talking to baxi , I have stoppod using thier products and I can only say they have cost me dear and that I would never use them again. HOPE THIS HELPS /Got up today and my baxi is at lock out , well suffice to say it was the temperature sensor on the flow pipe , easy to change there are two of them at the top of the boiler when you remove the casing you can see them, one black and one red,cost £ 12.00 for two. Another thought occured to me that it seems people are changing thier pcb,s for a past time. The cuase of this failure is probably the continual lockout due to the condensate trap design. Its like switching something on and off several hundred times, it don,t like it. for those of you who are technically minded if you get a fault , phone baxi service number and speak to technical, I know the boiler is useless but at least you might be able to squeeze some more life out of it.
Hi Tim , unfortunatly you have to fit a new flu . Use a vaillant boiler they are the best and you can get a grant for the ecomax one of £300.00. if you have any questions I will answer them to my best abillity cheers, uncleben.
CORGI INSTALLER 30 YEARS EXP

 

[saab9002]

I hope someone can help me , our baxi barcelona is starting to develop faults. The first was a lockout which I found to be the flow sensor corroded from a slight leak from the joint coming off the elbow it was fixed to , a clean up and replacement costing under a tenner sorted it. that was 2 weeks ago . Now when the timer comes in the pilot flame comes on but goes out approx 2 secs before the main gas lights causing a 'whoomph' as the gas lights , my wife is getting a bit concerned.I am not a qualified plumber but can virtually rebuild a house on my own. I am replacing the burner door seal and burner box also cleaning out the filter in the return pipe tomorrow I have leant all this through this forum and thanks to Jane for telling me about this thread I did not realise how common faults were with barcelonas until now

 

[another_sparky]

I found this site ( Diynot) due to having to search for help for these Baxi Barce' probs. so thats one thing I'm grateful for.

However, to offer a little more advice on the condensate trap:
Dont just assume, by emptying the trap, that the boiler will suddenly go HEy Presto and fire up !!

I suspect the sensor is still recognising even the slightest bit of dampness So, I have discovered, that by emptying and then taking off the trap entirely- then letting a hairdryer blow some hot air into the trap chambers for about 10 mins - it certainly dries out sensor.

Hope this helps.
So far My lockout has gone away for ........28 days and counting!!

PS
( What desinger at Baxi chose to design the condensate refill plug mounted hortizontally?)

 

[peter anderson]

is this a record for the number of replies to a query?

 

[timwickington]

A record it may be but I'm sure one we wish none of us had had to contribute to. My Baxi Barcelona has been a pain since day one... it is ALWAYS noisy and occassionally plays up. If I could replace it with something that supported the twin-flues I have engineered through the house I would... a £1000 it cost but that is nothing compared to the daily torment of its whining, banging and whistling. If it were a girlfriend it would be put in the bin... but at least she'd keep me warm when needed!

 

[ellie1997]

We did discover a way of preventing lockout for a few months, although my gas man told me off for doing it...

Scuse the ignorance here but when you drain the condensate you remove the small yellow screw top and the water drains, as was said earlier pointing a hairdryer up there does sometimes work, however, we discovered that by leaving the cap off and a jug underneath to catch the overspill lockout was prevented. (until it developed another fault but thats another story).

gas man told us off because he said Carbon Monoxide could enter through the space if we left the cap off. We had a detector in the kitchen anyway though.
Jane

 

[saab9002]

Ssame 'baxi' different day!! I went to supplier to collect door seal and burner box,Baxi had sent the wrong part , instead of a burner box they sent the base plate it is mounted on , after looking at the parts list at the suppliers for baxi we found more than one part under the same number and they would not supply the box listed at £28 separately from the complete burner, very helpful NOT. Fitted seal, marginally quieter but basically the same.We have decided to save up for another boiler to be fitted in the summer, probably a Vaillant certainly not a baxi and I have already put two friends off a replacement baxi in the last two weeks so at least some good will come out of it.
from Chris

 

[weargas]

I have already put two friends off a replacement baxi in the last two weeks

i'm of the opinion that baxi have never quite gotten combis "right" yet.
people seem to be raving about the current series (80e, 105e, 80 eco, etc) but I've been to stacks of these boilers only just out of warranty. Cheap boilers aren't always good boilers but you'd expect a concern like baxi to get it right.

the bahama!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what's that all about?????????
it's a boiler that should've come with how to change flow switches included in the users guide.

 

[timwickington]

I have posted to this thread various times about my Barcelona-tail-of-woe but I have a general but very important question... are there *ANY* condensing boilers on the market that have a good reliability rate and are not mentally noisy? Ta...

 

[twincam-escort]

I am NOT suggesting the stripdown off the gas valve in my previous post as mentioned by a subsiquent contributor. I merely REMOVED the valve for access to the case pressure tube which was full of water.
This is an entirely different thing.
Sorry if I gave this impression.
Anyway it seems the ranks of the "Suffering Barcelona Brothers", (SBB's) continues to rise judging by the increase in the posts.

 

[johnyrainbow]

Many thanks to all of you for the comments about lockout problems.
Our Barcelona started having ignition lock out problems this Feb, 15mths after installation.

Our boiler comes on about 5-30 to replenish hot water from the off peak night wash and support the morning showers.

Our has always re-started after switching off then back on so we have only suffered a few cold showers and cold house in the morning.

It started off 1 or 2 times a week but got worse and this week it was up to 1-2 times a day.

Anyway the notes gave me the confidence to look at what was going on.

I started off by reducing the spark gap to 3mm in the hope that would
reduce the liklyhood of it leaking to the condensate earth. I also removed and cleaned out the trap, there was 25mm of grity debris, I thought it had come down the flue but now fear it is from the heat exchanger.

The boiler then worked for 24hrs which seemed like a move in the right direction, but this morning the water was cold again.

For the first time I then heard it go through the five attempts to light so I had the front off and sure enough the condesate trap was full at the point of dischaging. I checked across the terminals and did get a resistance reading on the highest setting of my meter. but it cleared in minutes and the boiler re-lit.

I ran the boiler with the outer cover off and felt all round the combustion chamber seal but there was no hot spots or sooty areas.

So I conclude I need the Baxi cure part. Maybe it is less sensitive to the no lite sensors, Maybe it ensures a non explosive start up in more pressure conditions. whatever it does I need one like the rest of you.

Does anybody have the part No & description yet

 

[uncleben]

There aint no quick fix . see my blurb on the previous page. ps the spark dont go through the condensate sensors this is remotly sensed through the flame rectification control board. pps the bang on light up causes the flame failure . you need a corgi installer to check youve got 18.75 mb at the inlet to the gas valve and if not increase the size of your gas pipe from meter to boiler.

 

[johnyrainbow]

Thanks for taking the time to reply uncleben. And anybody else who is about to add further wisdom.
I think we have the means to actually find some answers and save many people from wasting money and being without heat.

The comment about the spark not actually discharging through the condensate earth is valuable and I feel sure that if we distill the experiences and add some knowledge we can establish some facts.
I have actually left the sensor wire off the condensate connection at the moment but it failed again, no less or more frequent.
Conclusion. It is not always because the condensate has wetted the connections.
Lockout with a continuous red light is only one type of lock out but the others types appear to be easier to sort out by following the fault guide.

On the gas pressure issue I had got to the stage where that was my next check step and I will report next week. I do have 22mm pipe all the way from the meter to the boiler, it is only 10meter max and it only reduces at the connection to the boiler, I will also check that both taps are fully open.
I will also try running all 5 gas stove burners whilst waiting for it to light.

If it is the explosive ignition that stops the lighting process I was unable to detect the bang,pooff or whomp on any of the 5 attempts I listened to when it failed on Sat Morning but this is science.

There was another incident that needs to be logged for consideration although so far it has only happened twice. When I was checking for leaks around the edge of the combustion box with my bare fingers. (with care, it gets hot quickly) Anyway my had brushed over the spark probe & sensor and the flame cut out twice. I could not make it happen again but I will try with damp hands next time. ( don't worry for me, I wont put them anywhere else and the mains circuit is protected with a sensitive leakage unit. BFN

 

[PaulAH]

This is an appalling collection of stories. Although I'm not personally afflicted by "Baxitis", thank heaven, I feel strongly that a manufacturer should not get away with launching such a badly designed product and failing to remedy the faults. A boiler is a substantial investment that could affect the value of your house.

Why doesn't one of you complain to Watchdog on TV? Pointing them to this site would give them quite enough evidence to start an investigation.

 

[uncleben]

what a laugh, these boilers are clearly not fit for the purposes of which they are intended. I saw watchdog recently and apparently we could all take Baxi to the cleaners as they have a responsibillity for up to six years.
I must say as in my previous posting they are on a damage limitation excersize and will use any excuse to say the appliance in question has been installed ioncorrectly, which in the majority of cases is simply untrue.
If anyone is up for it I will take them to task through the courts , are any of you solicitors?. Anyhow I saw the comments with regard to cut out recently and I also agree that it is difficult to isolate the specific cause of lockout in individual cases. However the rout cause must be the control board reciving a message from the sesor both flame rectification and condensate trap. Bearing in mind the layout where at one side of the potential the end of the sensor circuit is attatched to earth and the other end connects to the controll board it cant be anything else.The main concern here is twofold and I will do my best to explain. You know where the probe wire enters the combustion chamber , I think this is conected on to the condensate probe. The contol board senses that there is a flame present by means of flame rectification where by an ac current is passed through the probe and gets rectified by it. at that stage the main burner modulates to full power. It would seem that the condensate problem interferes with this process whereby the decrease of resistance to earth needs to only be slight in order to foul the sequence up. I know you disconected the condesate probe but I recon the circuit can be compomised maybe from a leakage to earth of either plus or minus potential from elsewhere. What a bl**dy mess Baxi have created.
With regards to the gas pipe size, the gas valve is so sensitive, unless you literally have 22mm pipe running to within 25mm of it then it will cause problems. Think of this , i AHVE A 28MM AND A 22 MM pipe , the 28mm a dedicated boiler supply running from the meter to the boiler.
I acn only get 15mb at best when the hob is on. The problem is that with all the new regs if you have a 34kw boiler and a hob, fire and whatever else you are going to have real trouble in desingning a suitably sized gas pipe.