RED365 Compact 18 Wood Pellet Boiler ISSUES - MCZ / RED365

[Robsmith88]

Hi,
I'm hoping a few people on here can help me as I took the plunge and had a wood pellet boiler installed last year and it's been nothing but trouble since.

In May 2013 I had a company install an MCZ RED365 Compact 18 wood pellet boiler and it has been a nightmare with LOADS of issues. since installation I have had the installers back out about 20 times to fix all manner of issues.

The main issue is that it keeps tripping the electrics (MCB) in the boiler room but am guessing that is caused as a knock on effect from some of the other issues.

- 3 x faulty igniters
- 1 x faulty turbulator
- 3 x faulty motherboards
- leaks due to the boiler not having the right UK connections
- many blown fuses
- overheating issues
- constantly tripping the electrics

In January, after being without heating and hot water for over 2 months I had them rip it out and replace it for a new one (the same model) and 4 weeks later, that has just tripped the electrics, blown fuses and caused other issues and I am now without heating and hot water AGAIN !!!

has anyone else had similar experiences? I just have no idea what to do now other than to instruct the installers to take it out and refund me in full.

has anyone else got a RED 365 Compact 18 or Compact 24 boiler with issues?

i'd love to hear from you to share your experience

thanks

Rob

 

[gassafe]

Sounds like a nightmare... I would request either a engineer from the manufacturer attends to the boiler, or the company sort it out or have it replaced by a different system.

Grant make a wood pellet boiler, uk based and probably a better overall product if you are looking to replace.


Sounds like the firm who installed are trying to sort the issues, but I would request a replacement at there cost.

 

[Pipes Plumbing]

You aren't the first person I have heard of having issues with the MCZ range of boilers, especially the earlier ones - Although your issues seem to be alot more serious than most I have heard of!

Gassafe is right in suggesting that you get a senior engineer from MCZ out to look at what is going on with your unit.
The Grant Spira boilers are fairly robust, if a bit agricultural in their design and maintenance routine. There are a lot of options out there now in terms of Pellet boilers from the cheaper end like MCZ up to the top end units from manufacturers like Eta and Windhager.

Is your boiler bag fed or supplied by a bulk store, and does the boiler heat an accumulator tank or the heating system directly?

 

[Gray0689]

Rob what area are you in
I might be doing a course on them boilers in next month or so
I could ask the rep for a manufacture engineer direct number for advice if you can't get sorted

 

[Gray0689]

Grant are very good but I believe they are now off the MCS register due to a condensate issue

 

[gassafe]

My last firm fitted the grant pellet boilers... First ever models caught fire at the burner & auger feeds pipe :0 I'm guessing they sorted these issues out tho....

 

[Worcester]

If I remember correctly Specflue are one of the 'official' UK distributors, and the other big distributor of then is PipingHotStoves so you could try speaking direct to them.

At least it sounds as if you installer is doing what he can to get you sorted, however the product is clearly not 'fit for purpose' at the moment...

(Kind one of the reason the pellet boilers we fit cost a lot more..)

There are a lot better boilers available for the price though.. so they could swap it for for another make.

 

[Pipes Plumbing]

Grant are very good but I believe they are now off the MCS register due to a condensate issue

DECC overturned the decision on condensing Biomass boilers recently, so the Grants are now back on the RHI lists thankfully!! (As we'd fitted a few ready for the RHI... Was nearly embarrassing!)

 

[Robsmith88]

Rob what area are you in
I might be doing a course on them boilers in next month or so
I could ask the rep for a manufacture engineer direct number for advice if you can't get sorted

Hi, i'm near to Warwick - I won't name the installer but the distributer was one of the ones mentioned in this thread, they've already been out a number of times as well as the installer and have now booked a date to do a full inspection of the boiler next week. it still doesn't help the fact that I have been without heating for another week again !!

the boiler is currently fed by bags with the sotre of bags situated the other side of a block wall... so there is no reason I couldn't put a hopper there and have an auger going up through the wall..

can anyone suggest a better boiler to go for if I can get them to replace it? It's situated in a utility room so we have limited space - I would say the available area would be 0.8 x 1.8M but that would include the space needed around the boiler too.

or maybe suggest a better more reliable source for heating (preferably on the mCS register) - we are in a remote village so no mains gas obviously..

thanks

 

[Worcester]

@Robsmith88, Unless you do a major heating and insulation upgrade, then biomass is your option.

Automated delivery systems and not complicated though they do take time to install and get working correctly unless the boiler has integrated controls for them (few do), so they ave to effectively operate standalone from the boiler, i.e sensing levels in the boiler's 'day hopper'

Before I could make any recommendations I'd need to know what your heat load is - it should be on your hand over documents - what are your total building heat losses calculated to be (i.e max kW needed) ?

(We are just near Evesham and are carrying out a site survey in Ettington tomorrow)

Please note my comments before, the MCZ is down at the how can I be polite ... 'value' end of the scale of products, traditionally we supply and install at the other end... however we do have a range of 'affordable' products for those that don't want the sophistication of being emailed when the ash box needs emptying

We educate our customers that the RHI is just that, an INCENTIVE, not an investment opportunity, so they can afford something of quality.

 

[lame plumber]

Oil ?

 

[Killy Bing]

i actually had a compact 35 outside my back door for a while.
it was rather....charred

pile of Italian pap

 

[Worcester]

Oil ?

To darned expensive to run

 

[Worcester]

Assuming the system was correctly sized (18kW) then our choice of circa 18kW auto fed pellet boilers would be (in no particular order):

CTC Ecoflex: [DLMURL="http://www.ctc-uk.com/biomass/wood-pellet/ecoflex"]EcoFlex[/DLMURL]
ETA PU15 ETA Heiztechnik GmbH - ETA PU PelletsUnit 7 to 15 kW or ETA PC20 ETA Heiztechnik GmbH - ETA PC 20, 25 and 32 kW
HDG K15 HDG K15 / HDG K21 HDG K21

You get what you pay for.. quality, reliability, post installation support ..

Bearing in mind when you go auto fed, you'll pay a premium in price for deliveries of less than 4t (6 ***) and then you'll need auguers / vacuum feeds etc.

Yes there are cheaper alternatives -as a single example of why they are cheaper - just check the burn back protection on them though, - some have virtually none, others rely on a plastic tube melting, the above all have full protection so that the fire cannot reach the pellets.

 

[gassafe]

They all sound like a fire risk to me lol!

 

[albatross]

Italians are good at making simple things like pizza and ice cream not complicated things like boilers.

I would be tempted to fit an LPG boiler and a tank or bottles outside. Either as a back up or to take over if this thing turns out to be a lost cause. I'd get an immersion heater if possible too to back up the hot water.

At least then the pressure is off and you have decent heating till the problem is resolved or rip it out and stay on the LPG boiler. At least it's pretty guaranteed to work.

You can't realistically live with something so unreliable. It's not fit for purpose. I agree with gassafe it's sounds like a fire hazard too.

 

[Worcester]

I'm probably old enough to be most of your dads and am suprised at the lack of appreciation by most plumbing / heating installers of the benefits of renewables.

Done properly (and maintained properly) these are just as reliable (and more than some of the c**p gas boilers we've taken out) as anything that is available on the gas / oil / lpg market place. You seem to forget that northern and western europe have been building and using these for well over 20 years - it isn't new, just new to the UK.

Stop nay saying and get up to date with tommorrows technologies, given time all your lpg and oil customers will convert to more efficient, more cost effective, solutions.

If you buy cheap, you'll get what you pay for. If you don't research the market, you get what your sold...

 

[Robsmith88]

Italians are good at making simple things like pizza and ice cream not complicated things like boilers.

I would be tempted to fit an LPG boiler and a tank or bottles outside. Either as a back up or to take over if this thing turns out to be a lost cause. I'd get an immersion heater if possible too to back up the hot water.

At least then the pressure is off and you have decent heating till the problem is resolved or rip it out and stay on the LPG boiler. At least it's pretty guaranteed to work.

You can't realistically live with something so unreliable. It's not fit for purpose. I agree with gassafe it's sounds like a fire hazard too.

I ripped out LPG to have this installed, as well as having a preference towards a more sustainable way of living LPG and oil prices are just rising way too fast. when we moved in to the property 6 years ago I was paying about £800 a year for LPG for heating and hot water - when I ripped it out a year ago I was paying £1,500 a year ! now with wood pellet I should go back to paying around £800 - £900 a year - and yes this will obviously rise and track fossil fuel prices but looking at the rest of europe and scandanavia it should track it at about 2/3 of the price.

it looks (at the moment) like my main issue with the RED 365 Compact 18 was down to the installers wiring it incorrectly - I assume this is due to the huge marketplace for 'green' energy at the moment and installers not being as experienced - no doubt this will change with time and products in the UK will become more reliable. Even with my issues I still think this is the way forward and I personally will not look at LPG or oil as an option in the future even if i don't stick with pellets.

 

[Worcester]

It looks (at the moment) like my main issue with the RED 365 Compact 18 was down to the installers wiring it incorrectly - I assume this is due to the huge marketplace for 'green' energy at the moment and installers not being as experienced - no doubt this will change with time and products in the UK will become more reliable. Even with my issues I still think this is the way forward and I personally will not look at LPG or oil as an option in the future even if i don't stick with pellets.

I agree for some people pellet boilers are a great choice. (We install loads of them)

However I would actually put your faults down to being very typical of the type of installer that would offer / install this range of boilers. For the ranges that we install the installer training and accreditation by the boiler manufaturers is far far more stringent before they will even supply you with one. - Anyone can purchase an MCZ boiler with no manufacturer training. - So inherently those installers aren't investing as much themselves in the products.

Back to my original quotation I'm afraid - you get what you pay for - caveat emptor .

We see this more and more across the whole renewables sector - people spend hours reseacrhing the technology and then don't research the installer.. Yet if you have an extension built you don't research the bicks and concrete - you research the builder ...

 

[Robsmith88]

the boiler is still currently running so all good there (time will tell of course)..

Does anyone have any info on the best way to set the MCZ RED365 Compact 18 up so that it runs at optimum efficiency? is it solely down to the pellet recipe?

Our house was specced at 14KWh heating + hot water usage for 3 people - we have cavity and loft insulation etc so the house is fairly efficient apart from the lounge, hall and dining room on the ground floor which have no insulation under the loor (beneath the floor boards it is just earth). the heating is set to come on at 5:30am and goes off at midday - it then comes on again at 3:00pm and runs until 9:00pm. we have the house thermostat set between 18 and 22 degrees depending if we are in or not.. I've tried having the heating running on lower all day and having it coming on and off throughout the day but that doesn't seem to change consumption.

we're currently using 3 bags of pellets a day (EN+ good quality ones - Verdo) but that seems excessive as is costing £8.40 a day - at that rate i'll be using nearly a ton a month.

any ideas what I can try or if there are any companies that will come and set these up to best efficiency?

 

[Gray0689]

Is it going direct in to heating or you using a buffer or thermal store

 

[Gray0689]

In fact could you post a couple of pictures up of boiler installation

 

[Robsmith88]

Is it going direct in to heating or you using a buffer or thermal store

Hi, will try and get a few pics up.

It is running to a twin coil thermal store in our airing cupboard. Both could currently connected to the boiler, got it just in case we go solar thermal (but that's another story).

 

[Worcester]

Hi, will try and get a few pics up.

It is running to a twin coil thermal store in our airing cupboard. Both could currently connected to the boiler, got it just in case we go solar thermal (but that's another story).

How big is the thermal store? What Make? What controls the heat input to the store?

If it is properly configured then the boiler should only be heating the store, and the store then heating the rads / water.

 

[Gray0689]

Hi, will try and get a few pics up.

It is running to a twin coil thermal store in our airing cupboard. Both could currently connected to the boiler, got it just in case we go solar thermal (but that's another story).

What litre is the thermal store
You should have had it piped up to solar coil to get best performance till you get solar fitted at least
Is there a load valve at boiler?