Hi,
Hope someone with some hands of experience of these boilers can help.
I have an Ideal Icos HE18, which is now 15 years old. It has never provided any trouble, and I have already planned for a replacement, and will be switching to a heat pump. (I know these can be divisive, but think it will work well for my individual circumstances....)
Anyway back to the Ideal, about a month back had no hot water, so checked and discovered an L F fault. Re-set the boiler it worked for a couple of days and then back to the fault. I searched online and noticed a LOT of info, so thought have I perhaps been lucky for 15 years.
Called someone out, genuine guy - not looking to make a coin (I think he doesn't want it to beat him!) who rattled off a lot of the things I've seen mentioned and posted here, so re-assured me he's on the right lines, and we've had a cleaned out condensate sump & pipe, which is now a smooth as a babies bum! The flame sensor to the left has been replaced, along with the ignition electrode on the right, and again they are new and clean. However, after a few days of perfectly good use the fault will re-appear.
When it does start I have noticed the "bang / whoosh of ignition seems louder - more of a pop, I seem to recall a thread which mentioned this, but not sure if that was a pointer towards a fix or not.
I don't have a gas cooker, but we've had the gas fire (more decorative than anything else ) on and he tells me nothing is sticking and no apparent issues with gas flow.
As I'm only using hot water at the moment it is only running for 45 minutes to an hour tops, so don't have too many issues with a re-set every few days, but appreciate this isn't going to be practical when central heating is required when it gets colder.
I'm in a slight fix in that the heat pump won't be installed this year (due to waiting time) so want to get this though until then, without basically replacing it.
Grateful for any suggestions, which I'll pass on to Bazza the Boiler Man!
Hope someone with some hands of experience of these boilers can help.
I have an Ideal Icos HE18, which is now 15 years old. It has never provided any trouble, and I have already planned for a replacement, and will be switching to a heat pump. (I know these can be divisive, but think it will work well for my individual circumstances....)
Anyway back to the Ideal, about a month back had no hot water, so checked and discovered an L F fault. Re-set the boiler it worked for a couple of days and then back to the fault. I searched online and noticed a LOT of info, so thought have I perhaps been lucky for 15 years.
Called someone out, genuine guy - not looking to make a coin (I think he doesn't want it to beat him!) who rattled off a lot of the things I've seen mentioned and posted here, so re-assured me he's on the right lines, and we've had a cleaned out condensate sump & pipe, which is now a smooth as a babies bum! The flame sensor to the left has been replaced, along with the ignition electrode on the right, and again they are new and clean. However, after a few days of perfectly good use the fault will re-appear.
When it does start I have noticed the "bang / whoosh of ignition seems louder - more of a pop, I seem to recall a thread which mentioned this, but not sure if that was a pointer towards a fix or not.
I don't have a gas cooker, but we've had the gas fire (more decorative than anything else ) on and he tells me nothing is sticking and no apparent issues with gas flow.
As I'm only using hot water at the moment it is only running for 45 minutes to an hour tops, so don't have too many issues with a re-set every few days, but appreciate this isn't going to be practical when central heating is required when it gets colder.
I'm in a slight fix in that the heat pump won't be installed this year (due to waiting time) so want to get this though until then, without basically replacing it.
Grateful for any suggestions, which I'll pass on to Bazza the Boiler Man!
