Question For Heating Brainiacs

[WaterTight]

System: 7 yr old Potterton Suprima 80L wall-mounted boiler feeding indirect vented system via mid-position port valve in large bungalow. She doesn't know age of cylinder but she guesses it might have been there before she moved in (10 yrs ago) but she doesn't know for sure as husband dealt with all that.

Complainant: A friend's mother. Aged 62. Widow. Living alone and without two pennies to rub together.

Problem: Boiler comes on for 1-2 mins (she hears the normal click-whoosh sound inside when it fires up) and then goes off for about the same amount of time - often a bit longer (she hears it click again and the whoosh heating sound goes silent.) This happens more or less every time it's on and resultingly it takes a long while to produce results.

History: Problem has been occuring for about 1 year with 3 different engineers having had a go at sorting it at 2 or 3 month intervals. Some with no success, some with very short-lived success. Their reports indicate success, but she says otherwise.

Afforementioned Service Reports Details: (barely legible writing in some so hopefully my dictation is accurate)

1) "Pcb faulty" (his writing says Pcs but I presume it's a bad letter b.) "Parts required: Pcb upgrade kit. Job Report: PCB Fitted + Tested + All Working"

2) "Intermittent fault with boiler staying alight. Boiler Not staying on long enough to heat hot water. Parts required: thermistor (exactly as spelled.) Job report: Fit new thermister (this time spelled with a letter e?) + Tested Ok and customer to monitor"

3) "Adjusted by-pass + balancing valves + tested. Possible scale or blockage in cylinder coil. 450 x 1050 indirect."


So any advice and/or ideas as to possible problems/solutions would be greatly appreciated. Just so that the next time an engineer comes to have a look we have some info to hopefully achieve a lasting solution.

 

[Puddle]

Well as for women of 62, living alone without two pennies to rub together,is she good looking,if so maybe she could join a dating site to meet someone with money or has she thought about a pet,maybe a three legged cat or a half eaten hamster from the local blue cross,for company,or maybe take in lodgers,does she live near a college or hospital to help her cash flow and give her a bit of company
maybe she could take in washing or make croshay table mats to sell at boot sales
by the way,as regards the boiler,sounds like a air pressure switch problem or flue problem,check flue assembled correctly,especially inner flue and no obstruction outside,replace air pressure switch
also fan could be slowing down when hot ,reducing pressure to switch ,then cooling and operating ok
Like the infomation about the spelling mistakes,bet they did not make a mistake on the ammount they wanted

 

[WHPES]

Sounds like a problem with the thermostat hysterisis.

If my memory serves me right, wasn't the controller for the Potterton Suprima beset by quality control problems or was this another model?

 

[REDSAW]

no money?.
tell her to apply for a warm front grant, or one from the council. or contact age concern.

 

[WaterTight]

Thanks for all your varied and detailed suggestions for alieviating the impoverishment of the elderly.

Thanks rather more for your thoughts on the heating problem.

sounds like a air pressure switch problem or flue problem,check flue assembled correctly,especially inner flue and no obstruction outside,replace air pressure switch
also fan could be slowing down when hot ,reducing pressure to switch ,then cooling and operating ok

Sounds like a problem with the thermostat hysterisis.
If my memory serves me right, wasn't the controller for the Potterton Suprima beset by quality control problems or was this another model?

Could either of these easily be responsible? How about the things tried by previous visiting engineers? Are there basically an awful lot of possible causes of this problem then? And therefore it's just work your way down a list using trial and error?

p.s. checked out warm front grant, will tell her about that.

 

[Sanke]

When boiler stops does the led on the display change to red forcing a restart or will it fire again with no problems ?

 

[WHPES]

I checked with my mate and the controllers on the Suprima boilers are a load of pants and always screwing up. My guess that's your problem.

There's companies on the internet which do refurbished controllers at a fraction of the price of new ones.

He says he would never touch anything by Potterton with a bargepole - appaling quality, rip off spares and abysmal customer service.

 

[Puddle]

I checked with my mate and the controllers on the Suprima boilers are a load of pants and always screwing up. My guess that's your problem.

There's companies on the internet which do refurbished controllers at a fraction of the price of new ones.

He says he would never touch anything by Potterton with a bargepole - appaling quality, rip off spares and abysmal customer service.

well that sorts that out then

 

[WHPES]

He did say that sometimes the controllers can be sorted out (if you are lucky) by going round any dodgy looking soldered joints on the PCB with a soldering iron and solder.