Bosch Worcester Highflow 400 keeps failing - help!

[mehran]

just pulled out a 400 in my house and replaced it with an intergas 36/30, the WB burst its tank

must say that WB makes the worst boilers around. never easy to work and always problems. i have no idea what anyone sees in them...

 

[Mags46]

latest update...waiting for worcester engineer to arrive but in the meantime Graham, my lovely BG engineer, has arrived to replace the dhw heat exchanger. At least one of the pipes connecting this to something is compelely gunked up so worth changing I presume. Thank heavens I'm not working at the moment (fulltime mum) otherwise I'd have been off every day this week!

 

[StuC]

unfortunately i have to agree with that. if you own a 400 or pretty much any of its variants you are on a hiding to nothing unless the system is kept immaculately clean. problem is the design of most 400 systems makes it difficult to put any filters on in a meaningful position.

If you had a 400 and were stuck with it for the moment, where would a "meaningful position" be?

 

[nickso]

unfortunately i have to agree with that. if you own a 400 or pretty much any of its variants you are on a hiding to nothing unless the system is kept immaculately clean. problem is the design of most 400 systems makes it difficult to put any filters on in a meaningful position.

If you had a 400 and were stuck with it for the moment, where would a "meaningful position" be?

anywhere you could get to it as you will be cleaning it out often enough.

 

[Mags46]

Latest update...everything worked ok from Friday fter the visit by the BG engineer and Worcester engineer. They changed the dhw heat exchanger, the cutout switch and something else, cleaned various bits up and everything seemed to run fine so off they went. And indeed everything has been fine until I ran a bath for the kids this evening. It tripped out and there was a burnt smell so I'm guessing something has burnt out somewhere. The cutout switch can be reset and the boiler fires up but it almost immediately cuts out again. So over to BG again...

 

[petit_pablo]

Sounds like pumps gone now then. Possibility that they got it wet whilst doing all the other work

 

[petit_pablo]

unfortunately i have to agree with that. if you own a 400 or pretty much any of its variants you are on a hiding to nothing unless the system is kept immaculately clean. problem is the design of most 400 systems makes it difficult to put any filters on in a meaningful position.

If you had a 400 and were stuck with it for the moment, where would a "meaningful position" be?

anywhere you could get to it as you will be cleaning it out often enough.

Ive got a heatslave oil boiler in my utility. 1st thing i did was throw a magnaclean on the return and put 3ltrs of inhibitor in. Still didnt stop the div vlv seizing

 

[DP]

Petit Pablo, said filter is not fitted to all 400s. Know this from experience. Stripped almost all the units to single parts looking for this filter but non fitted as advised by WB during 4th call while on that job.

Client had Scottish Gas in to carry out repair before I was invited, to be told power flush needed. Turned out thhe pump was week and there was a massive air lock. The diverter is servo operated by pump power.

All the stripping, cleaning, replaced pump and new seals and air lock clearing had given the boiler a new lease of life.

 

[ollski]

Quite often come across a few where a previous engineer has taken it out in the belief it will last a little longer Danny, but I always put them back in.

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• ollski
• 7 Feb 2010
• 1

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[DP]

Thanks pal, another tip filed away for future use. Great picture

 

[Agile]

That must be one of the BG "tips" to remove it which are listed on that computer system the rest of us are envious of !

Its one of the facts of life that removing filters does increase the MTBF. Its just that the next one cakked out has to spend four times as long !

Tony

 

[Mags46]

BG called out Worcester so their engineer arrived ealier. Running the bath tap for enough time to fill the bath compeltely, let alone enough for 2 small children, didn't trip the boiler - oh joy, a random fault?! He has turned down the hot water gas burner (?) by 2 millibars as it was on full whack. Only time will tell now...

 

[grahamcadnant]

We have had exactly the same problems over the last ten years with the same boiler and other smaller boilers by the same maker. Worcester have almost replaced all the working parts now on this 400 and it still goes wrong after a few days of operation.

We have a maintenance contract with Domestic and Gerneral and they are called out to this boiler at least 5 times a year for several different faults. This is the worst piece of machinery I have ever had the misfortune to come across in my life. But it was recommened to us by our plumber...perhaps because the plumber was on commission ie for so many fitted he received a free holiday from Worcester Bosch.

I personally would like to take all this further and create a forum for these problems and then see how Worcester deal with customers who have had great additional expense due to a shoddy piece of hardward that cost a great deal of money when new and has caused myself and my colleague so much embarassment with paying customers in one of our larger holiday cottages.

I think it is an utter disgrace and I would like to take this up with Watch Dog and see if they would be interested in the long line of faults that Worcester Bosch customers have and had to suffer and the expensive call out fees from both Worcester Bosch and other service contractors incurred by the failings of this machinery.

I would never buy Worcester Bosch or recommend it to anyone!!!!!

We're getting fed up with a series of boiler problems which so far British Gas have been unable to solve.

Jan 01: heating/hot water had failed. BG engineer reset overheat cutout switch and repressurised the boiler (it had gone low).
Jan 02: boiler overheat cutout switch had tripped several times. BG eng reduced system pressure & repressurised the expansion vessel.
Jan 22: boiler worked fine for several days then started banging when hot water run. BG eng replaced the pump & cleaned the bypass/thermostat tube.
Jan 29: boiler worked ok for a couple of days & then started banging again. BG eng replaced the main heat exchanger & put in 2 lots of fastcleanse as we also booked a power flush for Feb 17.
Feb 03: Boiler stopped producing heat/hot water but NO overheat cutout switches tripped. BG eng replaced the fan & air pressure switch. This worked for about 3-4 hours but failed again, possibly after using the hot water.

BG think there is muck in the system which may be causing the initial problems of overheating and tripping the cutout switch. However tey're currently at a loss as to what has caused 2 fans to fail. Can anyone help/advise?

 

[Agile]

Graham, dont you realise that this boiler is now well past its normal life expectancy?

Worcester ceased covering them on any of their cover or repair schemes a couple of years ago.

You are very lucky that D&G still ocver them it seems. I doubt that they will take on new ones though.

Anyone that can keep the system clean will have a very reliable boiler. All the problems the lady was writing about were dirt related and the first two just demonstrated that she did not even bother to keep the pressure topped up!

Tony