What no plumber....?

[Darkwood]

My boiler broke down last night (not the other half), no H/W and has been intermittent when calling for C/H

Now this isn't my usual field of play but hey its all electrically controlled at the end of the day, so after a few hours of dibbling and dabbling and a downloaded installation manual I figured out how it worked, what was wrong and what needed servicing while I was there...

Required new control PCB and was quoted over 140quid for a boiler thats probably 15yrs old ... well they can go kiss my hairy harris I thought so stripped the board out and traced the circuit tracked from the terminal inputs to a failing pcb mount relay that brought the C/H on hence intermittent, the H/W issue was a failed diaphram in the H/W manifold.

Cost of relay £2, cost of diaphram £4

Cost of service parts that were intermittent and due for replacement - £80inc' (diaphrams for HW manifold, flow valve and diverter + pressure differential switch for monitoring air flow)

Boiler working again and although it could have been achieved with £6 of materials I went all out on a service and saved at a guess £400 - £500 callout for diagnosis and repair.

If anyone points out I'm not Corgi-registered, all I can say is the gas side was never touched, I'm more than qualified to diagnose and repair the control side (even more so than most registered plumbers) so sod the red tape on this occasion, it was my own boiler and of course I wouldn't be doing it for customers.

I shall consider a new boiler next year after seeing the state of the heat exchanger and not worth the cost against a new more efficient boiler. mg_smile:

 

[markc123]

Haha i love the 'id rather die than employ a plumber' approach ... bravo to you :lol: :hurray:

Well done, now go and have a smug beverage! :54::smug2:

 

[Midwest]

Had the same thing few years ago with a failing pcb. Found an online supplier, that stocked one for my 15 year old boiler. Trouble was almost had to set up a direct debit with em. Gave up after the second one. Save up for a new boiler.

 

[telectrix]

had similar on a washing machine. control board failure. it was at the time on a repair contract so i called them out. guy fixed it with a new board costing the company about £150. i kept the old board. located the SCR that was duff. soldered in a new one £1.75 from cpc). got a spare board now.

 

[plugsandsparks]

As some may know I extended the business into commercial and industrial gas and its been a trip of hilarity when it comes to dealing with wholesalers and manufacturers, I guess we in the electrical trade don't know how lucky we are, one example:
40KW Combi not firing for hot water, tried all the obvious tests so called manufacturer and his response was "It could be one of three things" I said I don't change parts randomly and whats the test procedure to determine which component is faulty. "err there isn't one, start with the cheapest parts first" well I have changed two out of three and the last part is not available til end of Dec. WTF - This is a current boiler from a large manufacturer.

Oh BTW - To DW, errrr check out gas safe regs, you will find the PCB is handling all the safety systems so its a no no....lol

 

[telectrix]

nothing to stop DW doing gas work in his own house. only if doing it for other people is gas safe required. otherwise, who in hell can you get to bypass the gas meter dec,-feb.?

 

[Darkwood]

As some may know I extended the business into commercial and industrial gas and its been a trip of hilarity when it comes to dealing with wholesalers and manufacturers, I guess we in the electrical trade don't know how lucky we are, one example:
40KW Combi not firing for hot water, tried all the obvious tests so called manufacturer and his response was "It could be one of three things" I said I don't change parts randomly and whats the test procedure to determine which component is faulty. "err there isn't one, start with the cheapest parts first" well I have changed two out of three and the last part is not available til end of Dec. WTF - This is a current boiler from a large manufacturer.

Oh BTW - To DW, errrr check out gas safe regs, you will find the PCB is handling all the safety systems so its a no no....lol

I design control systems and safeguards for machinery well beyond the SIL level safety catagory of a domestic boiler, I design safety systems with redundancy incorporated and intergrate them to plc programs I write, the downside of this is that I spotted the PCB card isn't fail safe, a few issues with design that could be dangerous due to component failure or card failure but not bothered addressing it with the manufacturers as it 15yrs old and has probably been improved on several time since this design. It scares me that I can see scenario's where people could be scolded or worse through poor design here ....like I say - Im more than qualified to mess with this stuff ... (I know it was in jest but just saying :smug2: )

 

[telectrix]

if it cam to the crunch, i'd rather have DW playing with my C/H than some wet-pants.

 

[UNG]

I think all boiler PCB's are designed with premature failure built in you only have to look at the quality or more to the point lack of it with the soldering more dry joints per sq in than any other PCB's I've come across