Vaillant Ecotec 831 ignition failure

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Continuing from the thread "Ignition failure at peak times" (now closed?) :

The home insurance is proving frustrating, however Vaillant as well. Home insurance sent someone over last week (as mentioned in previous thread) but when followed up regarding when they would swap electrodes out the person on the phone said case was closed. We then contacted Vaillant who came out on Wednesday and investigated, decided it was the gas valve and swapped that out. That evening the boiler was still making those "explosions" but never switched off with an ignition failure.
Home insurance people called after Vaiillant had been round saying "when are you free to have your parts swapped / installed?". I would have asked them to come round and do it but the wife was annoyed with them for closing our case and said not to bother as Vaillant had already been round.
Thursday night boiler went off with ignition failure code (24 hours after Vaillant came round) and we called Vaillant back out. The problem is the boiler won't ignite at all now. It would previously ignite and switch off after some time (several hours, typically overnight). They popped in on Friday and claimed the gas valve is damaged and it's a plumbing fault (condensing pipe blockage) and they aren't responsible and left us with a non-working boiler. They didn't send the same engineer as Wednesday, of course.

Called home insurance people out on the back of Vaillant engineer walking out the door and we are waiting for someone to turn up (as they cover more than just the boiler). Currently still waiting.

What are your thoughts on Vaillant engineers' diagnosis? You would have thought first engineer should have investigated properly and identified condenser pipe blockage (if there is indeed one?). What about walking off-site and leaving us with a non-working boiler? I'm somewhat flabbergasted at the service provided by everyone that's been on site. First Vaillant engineer was even cheeky enough to claim that our boiler wasn't being serviced right. I asked the wife what he'd said and he claimed we had "comfort setting on" (which is a user setting that is a personal preference to keep some hot/warm water in the small reservoir in the boiler) and that the target temperature for the central heating was set too low (again, a user setting that I set between 45 and 60 C depending on the season).

 

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We then contacted Vaillant who came out on Wednesday and investigated, decided it was the gas valve and swapped that out. That evening the boiler was still making those "explosions" but never switched off with an ignition failure.

They popped in on Friday and claimed the gas valve is damaged and it's a plumbing fault (condensing pipe blockage) and they aren't responsible and left us with a non-working boiler. They didn't send the same engineer as Wednesday, of course.


What are your thoughts on Vaillant engineers' diagnosis? You would have thought first engineer should have investigated properly and identified condenser pipe blockage (if there is indeed one?).

Vaillant replaced the gas valve!

Next engineer says that it is damaged! How and why? Why did he not replace it again?

Did he show you any evidence of the condensate drain being blocked?

That is something very easy for you to check, test and unblock. Plenty of help on this forum.

Tony

 

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Thanks Tony. Well, Vaillant didn't want to keep replacing parts at their expense and I wasn't there when the chap came up with his last diagnosis. We did immediately call out our home emergency insurance and the heating engineer turned up this evening. He wasn't keen on messing about with the boiler and suggested we contact Vaillant as boiler is still under warranty. We explained what occurred during the week and he said, as you did Tony, that clearing out the condenser pipe would be the best thing to do next, but not a job he was covered for (heating-limited remit and not plumbing). He pointed me to the suspected pipes and connections (sink, washing machine and condenser pipe all go into same U tube). As the home emergency insurance could have sent out a plumber in a day or two, but not earlier than tomorrow I decided to have a go myself (all indoors and under the sink, hand screw fittings, etc). Fairly easy job. U tube was clean but the condenser pipe did have gunk at the end of it. Once I cleared it out and vacuumed it to ensure nothing was stuck further along the condenser pipework the boiler started up just fine, with no knocking or internal explosions and misfiring. We now have CH and DHW back!