Worcester Bosch Greenstar 8000 Life problems....Or are they???

Hi everyone,

Hope you're all safe and well. I got a Worcester Bosch Greenstar 8000 Life installed in spring this year. The boiler has been running fine for on-demand tap water, but I never ran the CH due to it being warm weather.

However, now that the cold nights have drawn in, I've started using the heating. Here's the potential issues that I seem to be having:

1. The first issue - When the thermostat/receiver light comes on demanding heat, I can see that the boiler flame light comes on and the radiator icon starts flashing, but then the boiler temperature hovers around 30-40C and then takes approx. 15-20mins each day to actually start actually climbing slowly. Even after the temperature starts rising, it takes a further 45mins-1hr for the temperature to rise to approx. 60C. FYI, the boiler CH temperature is set to 70C. By the time the temperature rises decent enough and warms up the house, the thermostat is close to turning off again.

2. The second issue - Whilst heating is on, if someone opens the hot water tap, naturally the hot water is diverted from the CH to the taps, which itself isn't an issue. But when you close the taps it takes approx 2 minutes for the boiler CH icon to flash and show the flame icon again.

The original boiler installer sadly has passed away and his company has gone into some sort of liquidation/closed. I'm looking into trying to resolve that, but in the meantime any help to resolve this without the stress of finding someone would be really appreciated.

From what I can tell, this Worcester Bosch Greenstar 8000 Life seems to be wasting a lot of time mostly getting prepared to heat (syphon-fill???), which beats the point of saving energy. I got a feeling that it's some sort of installer (L0-L4) settings that may need refining. Any suggestions for these would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks.

 

1. What sort of controls do you have on the boiler / system? If you have weather compensation this could account for at least part of the slow climb in boiler CH temperature. Don't forget that to maximise time in condensing mode, the return temperature should be at or below 55 degrees, which means the flow should be no more than 65 degrees.
2. Nearly all combi boiler have a delay after running DHW. Two minutes sounds about right.

 

Thanks very much for your prompt reply oldbuffer.

I'm happy to accept your answer for number 2, so lets just eliminate that for now.

The combi boiler has a hive 2 (hub, receiver and wireless thermostat) connected to it. But I'm not sure if these have weather compensation built-into them. What I do know is that as soon as I press the boost button or demand heat, I can see the Hive receiver on the boiler flashing a green light for approx 15-30 seconds, then goes solid green and then boiler flame + flashing radiator icons show. The issue in my opinion is definitely on the boiler side or settings. My personal suspicion is that it's related to the Syphon-Filling programme, which from researching online states it can take around 15 minutes, but I'll wait for your reply to see what you make of it.

 

The syphon fill is only activated if power to the boiler is cut then re-instated

 

Yes, the power was cut recently and when the power came back on, it took considerable time to come back online (which I assume is normal??).

Does a power-cut reset any settings? If so what?

 

We have the same boiler. Since Worcester offer 9 years warranty, why not call and book a free visit from their engineer?

 

I'm sure it's not free, is it, especially if they don't find any faults?

 

If you registered your life 8000 with Bosch, they will activate 9years warranty for you. I’ve already got 2 free visits during the summer to check out the expansion valve. But these days they are getting busier. Probably you need to wait longer to get through the customer service and book an appointment.

 

My installer at the time said that he was going to register the warranty on my behalf, but I don't remember receiving any paperwork or proof.

How can I check?

 

You could find serial number at the bottom of life8000. Then call Worcester Bosch customer service to register yourself.

For the first issue, is there Optimum Start function in your ThermalStat? Some smart system will preheat your home and learn how long it takes. Default setting is 3 hours for most homes. You can change the setting to none to disabled this pre-heating process.

 

Thanks I will try and contact them today.

As far as I'm aware, there's no preheat/optimum start function and to be honest I don't think this issue is related to the thermostat as I see when it demands heat, that the boiler does come on. But it's after this point that it gets stuck in a long delayed cycle of little else happening.

 

While looking for something else I found this from the life8000 manual. I’m just guessing , could the issue related to the divert valve?

4.5 eco key
In eco mode the appliance will heat the cylinder if the temperature is
approximately 12 °C below the set temperature. Eco mode is enabled by
default, during the initial appliance start up.
In Preheat mode the appliance will heat the cylinder if the temperature
is approximately 6 °C below the set temperature. The appliance heats
the cylinder more frequently. This tops up the cyclinder temperature for
quicker heat up times, this is useful for large/longer demand periods.

 

Thanks for being so helpful Powwob.
Unless there is a hidden "eco mode" option, I have not pressed the eco mode button which is visible on front of boiler, nor does the boiler display show that it's in eco mode.

Regarding the Preheat mode - Not sure where this is or whether this option needs to be enabled because I do live in a large house.

 

Just call WB technical advice and they will talk you through setting it up, if they think there is a fault they will book a warranty call for you

 

Spent the last 1.5hrs on hold....got sick on holding and cut off the call. That's an atrocious customer service. I'll give it a try first thing in the morning, otherwise I'm back to square one.