M
mcginty
Hi folks - am posting here for the first time, so hope that I've come to the right place for a bit of advice... I'm having a problem with my central heating that has got us stumped. And to make matters worse, I can't seem to find a local engineer or plumber (Liverpool/NW) who wants to go near the problem! I have 2 questions really, but here's the background:
We have a relatively new Worcester Greenstar condensing boiler, which intermittently gets stuck to on - meaning that the central heating (and sometimes the water too) get very very hot.
It's an occasional fault, so sometimes the heating behaves itself and follows the timer, but when it goes on the blink the only way to shut it down is to turn off the mains electricity to system - trying to turn it off at the control panel has no effect, and adjusting the central hearing thermostat does nothing either. The house just gets hotter and hotter until you realise it's jammed on.
We've had it looked at by a couple of local firms, the first of whom changed the control panel (a Drayton Lifestyle) which seemed like a sensible move - but this didn't help though unfortunately.
Another firm came and looked at it and suggested it was the mid-position actuator (a Drayton MA1) although they weren't sure, and suggested we just leave it and see how we get on. To me this sounded like a less likely source of the problem, as I thought the actuator just opens and closes a valve that directs water to the radiators, tank, or both - it doesn't actually control whether the boiler is running or not?
Anyhow, we're now trying to get someone to come back and sort the problem once and for all, before the boiler explodes, but we can't get hold of anyone! The 2 guys who have visited previously are swerving me, and i've had no interest through the mybuilder/rated people websites that i've used in the past to find local trades.
So, finally to the questions!
1. Does it sound likely to anyone here that the actuator is the problem?
2. Do any of you who are pro's steer clear of nasty jobs such as intermittent faults?
The reason i'm interested is that i'd be willing to take a punt on buying an actuator myself, then getting in an engineer just to fit it if people are nervous about taking the job on and doing niggly fault finding.
Anyway, thanks for any advice, and sorry for the reeeeallly long post.
McG
We have a relatively new Worcester Greenstar condensing boiler, which intermittently gets stuck to on - meaning that the central heating (and sometimes the water too) get very very hot.
It's an occasional fault, so sometimes the heating behaves itself and follows the timer, but when it goes on the blink the only way to shut it down is to turn off the mains electricity to system - trying to turn it off at the control panel has no effect, and adjusting the central hearing thermostat does nothing either. The house just gets hotter and hotter until you realise it's jammed on.
We've had it looked at by a couple of local firms, the first of whom changed the control panel (a Drayton Lifestyle) which seemed like a sensible move - but this didn't help though unfortunately.
Another firm came and looked at it and suggested it was the mid-position actuator (a Drayton MA1) although they weren't sure, and suggested we just leave it and see how we get on. To me this sounded like a less likely source of the problem, as I thought the actuator just opens and closes a valve that directs water to the radiators, tank, or both - it doesn't actually control whether the boiler is running or not?
Anyhow, we're now trying to get someone to come back and sort the problem once and for all, before the boiler explodes, but we can't get hold of anyone! The 2 guys who have visited previously are swerving me, and i've had no interest through the mybuilder/rated people websites that i've used in the past to find local trades.
So, finally to the questions!
1. Does it sound likely to anyone here that the actuator is the problem?
2. Do any of you who are pro's steer clear of nasty jobs such as intermittent faults?
The reason i'm interested is that i'd be willing to take a punt on buying an actuator myself, then getting in an engineer just to fit it if people are nervous about taking the job on and doing niggly fault finding.
Anyway, thanks for any advice, and sorry for the reeeeallly long post.
McG
