Radiators go cold although boiler seems to be working ok ?

[Bette]

hi any help appreciated ...my radiators are going 'off' interminatly although the timer a Drayton Lifestyle Lp711 has a red light on as though everything is working correctly , and the combi boiler is showing the heating light as on !! I have to turn boiler off and turn it on again and it all works ok , turning on and off as the timer has been set ....so far I have had a company come in and recharge the expansion vessel , then replace the ex vessel and a PVR , problem was not resolved , they now say I might need a new Drayton LP711 and would charge £80 to fit .....couldn't I just do this myself as does it me only changing the top box , the back plate won't need changing will it ? ....they don't know if this is the problem , or it could be the control panel ..it's all getting very expensive ..thanks for your help .

 

[Doggit]

They obviously don't know what the problem is, and to say that it might be the controller, definitely suggests they need replacing before the timer is; challenge them.

I'm not an expert at all, but I can't see any of what they've done as being part of the problem. If you have to turn the boiler on and off, then it doesn't suggest it's a timer issue. When they changed the expansion vessel, what was the pressure gauges reading, and was it going too high or too low.

When the rads go off, is the pump still running, and are the flow and return pipes from the boiler still hot. Are there cold spots on the rads.

 

[Bette]

The first time they came they said that there was no air in expansion vessel , I had noticed that the pressure had got quite low and I suppose over the last few months I had to re pressurise it prob twice , so I could understand that I had a prob with the expansion vessel ....but I don't think this has anything to do with the problem I called them in for , which was rads going off unexpectedly .....there are no cold spots on rads when on ...I haven't checked flow and return pipes ! Wills do when happens again ..the boiler sounds the same ...so I am assuming that the pump is still running ...sorry to be vague ...but not up on these sorts of things ! Thanks

 

[DP]

Call the company and challenge them as suggested earlier.
Expansion vessel fault would result in low pressure due to expansion vessel not doing its job
With new vessel fitted, it has not resolved the problem, so that task is surplus to requirement. I would rather admit defeat instead of changing needless parts unless there is no alternative

When you switch the boiler off, you are resetting the electronics/ circuitry. On power up, the circuit sequences, burner fires, water heats, reaches target temperature. Sometime after this the burner may go out and boiler goes to sleep for a predetermined period. Looks like it is not waking up from that power snooze

Knowing your boiler make and model would help. Also, if it is a combi boiler, often running a hot water tap gets the boiler working

 

[Bette]

Hi the combi boiler is a Potterton Gold HE ...., when I 'turn the boiler off' I just turn the selector switch to '0', then back to normal place and it all fired up nicely and works fine ...till next time the radiators go cold ( which is usually only once in the evening ) ...I've spoken to Drayton this morning ref timer and after my explanation of problem they don't think that it's a timer issue ...I rang Baxi help line ..they are sympathetic but say get engineer to call us ... My gas heating Company say engineer has to come to house and call Baxi whilst infront of the boiler its not something they can do from their office , therefore another cost is incurred from them to phone from my house .....it's a mystery ....as far as I can tell ...timer is working ok , boiler 'seems' fine , but when heating is on ..after a couple of hours when system has worked fine , all of a sudden rads go cold , hot water working fine , all lights that should be on are , no error code or lights flashing , so I turn boiler to 0 , then turn on to (tap,radiator) icon , and all starts up and works ok until timer kicks in and turns it all off for the day .... As it stands engineer due to return next week...thanks

 

[Bette]

Update ....error E168 has just come up on display ..so looks like a new control panel is needed ...

 

[Doggit]

Which goes to show they are a bunch of cowboys; we all suspected boiler panel issues, so why didn't they. But if you've had to top up the pressure, then there's another issue somewhere. If it was the expansion vessel, then there would have been evidence of the water being blown out by the PRV, so they wouldn't have had to change that either. They should have asked you to check for error codes, and diagnosed from that. All the programmer does is tell the boiler when to fire up and shut down, and they can do a simple electrical check to test whether the programmers faulty, so just changing it to see of that cures the problem shows they don't really know what they are doing.

We've done it, and we're not on site, so that doubly questions their competence or their integrity. Find someone else to do the repair, and ask for a refund of their charges, or you'll report them to trading standards etc.