suprima 30/boilermate III tepid water

[alessandro]

Hi

I've got a boilermate II powered by a suprima 30 boiler.

I've had a problem for a number of years now with heaters occassionally not turning off; even with the thermostat right down and the timer on off, the heaters continue to blaze away. Several engineers have changed bits and bobs but the problem soon reappears. I discovered a 'flush' lever which when slowly turned from left to right finally turns the heating off, I believe this is on the 3 port mid position valve, but not sure really. recently I've only been able to turn the lever half way across, I'm guessing it is jammed with limescale or sludge.

Then last week the hot water system started performing badly with water coming out lukewarm. I had an engineer look at it, he said the top cistern was completely drained and full of sludge - he recommended a power flush which costs £250 - however, before shelling out more cash on this system, has anyone encountered these problems on suprima/boilermate set ups and been able to solve them?

Thanks
Alessandro

 

[alessandro]

it's actually a boilermate III not II

 

[mickyg]

is it not a systemate? if it has the 3 way valve. Anyway, its difficult to pin point your problem, but a few things of note. Powerflushing does not work on thermal stores. The best you can do is disconnect the flow and return to radiators and flush the radiators independently. The 3 way valve could well be your problem if its sticking. I think its a standard danfoss valve(I may be wrong) but regardless its a fairly simple thing to change even for a DIYer. Certainly if its not moving as much as it did then it will no doubt need replacing regardless.
In regards to your system in general, I have dealt with 100s of boilermates over the years(Lots of late80s-90s build near me) and found them extremely problematic. Most manufacturers of boilers don't like their boilers connected to them for various reasons but mainly as their warranty call rates go through the roof, especially on the later 2000 models.
Most common problem with thermal store is engineers who don't understand them, but other common problems on gledhills are pcb failures, mixer valves scale up, DHW coils scale up as do plate hex on later models. Worst of all boilermate systems suffer badly with corrosion, admittedly often due to poor installation and lack of inhibitors but also because of the cheap nasty metals they use to build them. They can't be flushed so a very costly replacement is the only answer.
There's a certain salesman on this forum who thinks they're great but has never worked on one.


Micky

 

[gas4you]

Firstly is the suprima boiler stst on full and do the radiators heat up nice and hot?

If not check the system pump is turning/working.

The 'Y' valve on these sends the system water to the rads or the thermal store to heat.

The HW is produced by the second (higher placed) pump circulating the stored hot water through the plate HE.

The pcb controls the water temp also.

I would check the second pump is spinning properly, then try to see if the pcb is working ok

Look on the pcb and follow the MI's on page 25 to test, post readings back on here.

 

[alessandro]

is it not a systemate? ... Powerflushing does not work on thermal stores. I think its a standard danfoss valve ...

Hi Mickey,
thanks a lot for your reply - it says boilermate III on the tank. thank you very much on the info on powerflushing and yes it is a danfoss valve according to the parts list

 

[alessandro]

Hi Dave,

Firstly is the suprima boiler stst on full and do the radiators heat up nice and hot?

thanks for your reply - yes it is on full, and radiators do get very hot

The HW is produced by the second (higher placed) pump circulating the stored hot water through the plate HE.

The pcb controls the water temp also.

I would check the second pump is spinning properly, then try to see if the pcb is working ok

Look on the pcb and follow the MI's on page 25 to test, post readings back on here.

not sure how to check if the pump is spinning - but I had a look at the pcb, nothing showed up on the red led 14 that supposed to indicate faults; the DHW pump speed controlled pcb also looked ok with the led flashing at a what I would call a low frequency; the SAC pcb had leds 1 and 2 on, but I could not get led 3 or 4 to come on, even with hot water running and the radiators on, should they come on? However as this is the first time I'm messing around with the system, I'm not entirely sure I've run the tests properly.

Thanks again
alessandro