Worth repairing pressure vessel on Vokera Linea Plus?

[sosidge]

Just an update (if anyone still following this thread).

"Emergency" plumber has been over and refuses to remove the pump due to the dirty water (it is very dirty, thick almost). Says the pump will clog up again within minutes. Recommends a powerflush before any repair.

Does this sound like the correct practice?

This is on the verge of becoming a very expensive repair, so far £200 on the pressure vessel and fitting, likely to be hundreds more on flushing and possible replacement parts (depending on how bad the gunking is).

How much is it worth spending on an older boiler like this before you are pumping good money after bad?

 

[DP]

OP, I would still go for service/ overhaul of this boiler. While it is not in the same room as the Flowmatic for build and ruggedness, it is still reasonably made and puts out 35kwatts of heat. Get someone who knows the boiler and its operation. So far work carried out on the boiler seems to be by those who have little understanding of it. Parts changing should be by fault diagnosis and not 'stick a pin in it and see what happens' approach.

Should you be thinking of replacing the boiler, you will still need to clean out the system. Ignore cleansing and new boiler will also go belly up.

If the replacement EV has made no difference, suspect vessel taken out had nothing wrong with it.

 

[Agile]

Anyone checking the old EXV would have been able to test to see if it was communicating with the boiler.

Blocked communication pipes are a common fault.

As always you do need a proper boiler engineer who knows how to fix things and not just a parts changer!

You are not helping yourself by hiding your location! Theres always a possibility there is someone on here who could help.

Calling an emergency plumber will result in a high bill and usually not in a fix for the problem. They are best suited for dealing with a single woman who had broken a tap or hammered a nail through a water pipe whilst hanging a picture.

I always suggest they call their boyfriend to help at inconvenient times. Often get a funny reaction. ( And not because they are half of a les couple as they are very friendly and very practically minded. ) They are a common breed of single woman which immagines if they call enough numbers the eventually someone will come and sort it out for them. They are also the same ones who stand beside doors waiting for someone to open it for them! Also the same ones who use the people at airports who pinch all the trollies and then complain if you give them less than a fiver! I have this idea that they are actually paid a salary to help people with luggage. Only the deaf would even try not giving them a big tip! £3 for five minutes work usually.

Tony

 

[sosidge]

OP, I would still go for service/ overhaul of this boiler. While it is not in the same room as the Flowmatic for build and ruggedness, it is still reasonably made and puts out 35kwatts of heat. Get someone who knows the boiler and its operation. So far work carried out on the boiler seems to be by those who have little understanding of it. Parts changing should be by fault diagnosis and not 'stick a pin in it and see what happens' approach.

Should you be thinking of replacing the boiler, you will still need to clean out the system. Ignore cleansing and new boiler will also go belly up.

If the replacement EV has made no difference, suspect vessel taken out had nothing wrong with it.

Pressure vessel was full of black water - well and truly gone.

Pleased to hear that the boiler is worth repairing.

Anyone checking the old EXV would have been able to test to see if it was communicating with the boiler.

Blocked communication pipes are a common fault.

As always you do need a proper boiler engineer who knows how to fix things and not just a parts changer!

You are not helping yourself by hiding your location! Theres always a possibility there is someone on here who could help.

Calling an emergency plumber will result in a high bill and usually not in a fix for the problem. They are best suited for dealing with a single woman who had broken a tap or hammered a nail through a water pipe whilst hanging a picture.

I always suggest they call their boyfriend to help at inconvenient times. Often get a funny reaction. ( And not because they are half of a les couple as they are very friendly and very practically minded. ) They are a common breed of single woman which immagines if they call enough numbers the eventually someone will come and sort it out for them. They are also the same ones who stand beside doors waiting for someone to open it for them! Also the same ones who use the people at airports who pinch all the trollies and then complain if you give them less than a fiver! I have this idea that they are actually paid a salary to help people with luggage. Only the deaf would even try not giving them a big tip! £3 for five minutes work usually.

Tony

Unfortunately the pressure vessel was replaced at my request using a part I supplied. Not having the ancillaries tested is probably the risk of trying to do your own repair but failing to complete the job yourself.

I have updated my location....

Personally I would rather not make an emergency call, however two small children and an unhappy girlfriend left me with little choice. I was a bit disappointed that he wouldn't even take the pump off and clean it while he was here though as that might have given us hot water again, even for only a short period.

 

[nickso]

So whats the Linea Plus storage combi called then?

figmento di imagionacion di tw atio.

in eyetalion of course.

LOL

I reckon Tony was thinking of the Linea Max HE

he probably was, ive yet to see a wall mounted linea max though.

the linea max is a hateful machine anyway.

 

[sosidge]

Yay!

Don't want to tempt fate but the boiler finally seems to be working as it should be! It's now gone overnight supplying hot water and timed central heating with no trips or unusual pressure readings.

Just to help anyone else with similar problems I will quickly run through what happened. It is a Vokera Linea Plus AG 32kW, manufactured 2000.

1. Boiler pressure rising above 3bar, dropping down towards 0 when cool, boiler switching itself off for protection

This actually happened 18 months ago but I worked out a way of keeping the boiler running while we decided whether to repair or replace (basically, heating was either always on or off to stop pressure changes). In retrospect this long delay was a mistake and caused more problems.

2. Pressure vessel replaced

Had a pressure vessel that I had purchased myself fitted after I failed to get it in myself. Plumbers did not do any testing after fitting it and also managed to soak the boiler with water from the failed vessel. I suspect this may have contributed to later problems.

3. Pressure still rising when heating up, then slowly returning to a normal level. Overnight, the boiler trips the mains

Called out the same plumbers on an emergency call. Different member of staff who basically decided he did not want to work on the boiler at all due to dirty water in system, suggested power flush. Refused to remove or test any parts. Not particularly happy with this attitude, at least a token effort at finding a fix would have been appreciated.

4. Pump replaced

Having lost faith in this plumbing firm and being desperate to get some hot water in the house I gambled on fitting a new pump to see if that was what was causing the mains trip. At the same time I cleaned out the pipe union to the pressure vessel which was blocked solid with gunk (plumber had not looked at this at all). Pump was the wrong call. £65 down the drain but at the time I felt it was worth a punt as it would cost this much to get anyone out. Although I did learn that the Wilo brand pump sold in Wickes does not fit into the pump housing on the Vokera boiler, it has to be a Grundfos 15-60.

5. Boiler still tripping mains, after a few restarts it starts showing error code 01 "failure to ignite" instead

At this stage I realised the problem was likely to be gas side and I wasn't going to touch it. Called out the Vokera engineer on their fixed fee service and was glad I did! Wish I had known about this on day one. Engineer seemed to really know his way around the boiler, fitted a new gas valve which got the boiler running, also replaced the heating and hot water control knobs as one was broken - the benefit of having a van full of spares!

6. Fixed!

All in all, big thumbs up to the Vokera service engineer, thumbs down to me for leaving the boiler unrepaired for so long, neutral thumbs for the original plumbers, on one hand I only asked them to fit a part, not diagnose a fault, on the other hand they could have gone the extra mile with the fault diagnosis when I called them out again.

 

[Agile]

Manufacturer's service engineers are usually familiar with the boilers and should have most of the spares which are required.

A good independent will also be able to do the same thing and for most repairs will be cheaper.

Tony

 

[Kateuk]

I am experiencing a very similar sounding problem with my Vokera Linea 24 combi boiler (experienced a slow loss of pressure over the summer when hot water only was is use. Turned on central heating a couple of weeks ago and experienced very high pressure when boiler was operating followed by total loss of pressure over a matter of a couple of hours).

Having read this forum I was wondering if you think that the hassle/cost etc was worth it in the end? Is the boiler still working now and how expensive was it to fix (when using the Vokera service engineer).

 

[sosidge]

A bit of a blast from the past to see this email notification pop up!

We moved out of the house over 18 months ago, so I have no idea how the repair has stood up.

But I certainly think the repair was good value at £150-ish fixed fee including parts. Had I known that a Vokera engineer with a van full of parts would come out for so little, I would never have bothered trying to solve the problem myself.

Would do the same again - assuming they still offer a fixed fee repair.