Help! Boiler packed up

[Adsibob]

We have a Veissman Vitodens 200-W system boiler. Installed new 3 years ago, only used for 2.5 years. At 35kw massively oversized, so rarely modulates above 40% (this was not intentional, I mistakenly followed my heating engineer’s advice and went much bigger than the 19kw my heat loss calcs showed).

It has been serviced each year and still under warranty. But not much use the week before Christmas. Do I get it repaired by whoever I can find and then sue Veissman?!? Ffs!

Here are the error messages:

 

Edited Thursday at 20:30 by Adsibob

[MikeGrahamT21]

Turned it all off and back on again? 
 

sorry I work in IT 😂 

[Adsibob]

43 minutes ago, MikeGrahamT21 said:

Turned it all off and back on again? 
 

sorry I work in IT 😂 

Funnily enough, this has solved the issue. But I’m still concerned given the fault is something to do with a gas valve. If the gas valve is faulty I rather not run the boiler! Hmmm… what now?

[Huckleberrys]

Have you spoken to viessman and got an engineer appointment booked in? They are usually pretty good

[joe90]

1 hour ago, Adsibob said:

Funnily enough, this has solved the issue. But I’m still concerned given the fault is something to do with a gas valve. If the gas valve is faulty I rather not run the boiler! Hmmm… what now?

If turning off and on has cleared the fault then the fault was electrical giving a faulty diagnosis, if the gas valve was faulty  then the fault would still be there on screen.

Edited Thursday at 22:22 by joe90

[Adsibob]

1 hour ago, joe90 said:

If turning off and on has cleared the fault then the fault was electrical giving a faulty diagnosis, if the gas valve was faulty  then the fault would still be there on screen.

I hope you are right. I will call Veissman in the morning

[marshian]

The oversize element (32 v 19kW) doesn’t matter it can modulate to a silly low figure cos Viessmann and if it’s a combi you may need the 32kW for HW.

 

The “sue Viessmann” made me laugh a lot - it’s thrown up an error code for the first time in 2.5 years - it’s under warranty if a reset (power down) fixed it then move on with your life it was a glitch - if it needs a reset every day or week then get an engineer in

[JohnMo]

12 hours ago, Adsibob said:

35kw massively oversized, so rarely modulates above 40% (this was not intentional, I mistakenly followed my heating engineer’s advice and went much bigger than the 19kw my heat loss calcs showed

Think my boiler is 32kW it's a combi, it modulates to about 6kW, yours will modulate down to about a third of that.  You have UFH so a huge buffer to work with, your will happily accept huge kW input.

 

If you have a 19kW heat loss (very much doubt you have, unless you have a wall missing) or half that, your boiler is in a happy enough place. Car analogy, just because you have 200hp does mean you use it, most the time you are using a 10th of that.

 

More importantly, is your boiler stop/starting 100s of times a day? If it only stops/starts a few times a day, happy days.

[marshian]

31 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Think my boiler is 32kW it's a combi, it modulates to about 6kW, yours will modulate down to about a third of that.  You have UFH so a huge buffer to work with, your will happily accept huge kW input.

 

If you have a 19kW heat loss (very much doubt you have, unless you have a wall missing) or half that, your boiler is in a happy enough place. Car analogy, just because you have 200hp does mean you use it, most the time you are using a 10th of that.

 

More importantly, is your boiler stop/starting 100s of times a day? If it only stops/starts a few times a day, happy days.

I don’t think he meant a 19kW heat loss - he meant the gas engineer proposed a 19kW boiler and he asked for 32kW to be installed

[Adsibob]

3 hours ago, marshian said:

The oversize element (32 v 19kW) doesn’t matter it can modulate to a silly low figure cos Viessmann and if it’s a combi you may need the 32kW for HW.

 

The “sue Viessmann” made me laugh a lot - it’s thrown up an error code for the first time in 2.5 years - it’s under warranty if a reset (power down) fixed it then move on with your life it was a glitch - if it needs a reset every day or week then get an engineer in

Just quite annoying that we came home to a cold ish house and no hot water. Turns out the fault had developed almost 36hr prior to that and even though it’s very cold outside, the house is sufficiently well insulated that it took that long for us to notice. Anyone know what I need to sign up to the boiler’s alert system? Is connected to the WiFi so might as well get that alert functionality working.

[Adsibob]

43 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Think my boiler is 32kW it's a combi, it modulates to about 6kW, yours will modulate down to about a third of that.  You have UFH so a huge buffer to work with, your will happily accept huge kW input.

Yea, I discovered the usefulness of this for the very first time yesterday. Once we had got the boiler working again, it powered up to 90% modulation, the highest I’ve ever seen it modulate to. I guess with the water temperature from the mains being quite cold, the house having an average temp of 17.8C and the UWC being cold, it needed quite a bit of power to heat everything up.
 

43 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

 

If you have a 19kW heat loss (very much doubt you have, unless you have a wall missing)

 

 

It’s a 1920s semi that has been extended at the back on all levels. The back is therefore built to modern standards, but the rest, although covered in some 45mm of EWI and very airtight with MVHR, is ultimately solid wall construction, no cavity. Maybe the heat loss is only 15kw, but I erred on the side of caution, got to 18kw then my heating engineer practically doubled it!
 

43 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

 

or half that, your boiler is in a happy enough place. Car analogy, just because you have 200hp does mean you use it, most the time you are using a 10th of that.

 

More importantly, is your boiler stop/starting 100s of times a day? If it only stops/starts a few times a day, happy days.

No short cycling thank god. But we didn’t make the most of the boiler’s capabilities unfortunately. I trusted the installer too much and didn’t commission a proper design. Had I done that, we would have got the benefit of WComp and low temperature heating. Instead we are heating water to 65C and sending that to the UFH manifolds where it is mixed down to about 35C. Silly really, but I’ve learnt my lesson now!

[Adsibob]

31 minutes ago, marshian said:

I don’t think he meant a 19kW heat loss - he meant the gas engineer proposed a 19kW boiler and he asked for 32kW to be installed

Sorry my mistake. I think I calculated heat loss PLUS requirements to heat the cylinder at about 15kw and decided to go with a 18kw boiler. My gas engineer /installer laughed at me, and insisted it wouldn’t be enough. I think he was wrong but he’s the so called professional, so I just accepted his view.

Edited Friday at 10:03 by Adsibob

[MikeGrahamT21]

12 hours ago, Adsibob said:

Funnily enough, this has solved the issue. But I’m still concerned given the fault is something to do with a gas valve. If the gas valve is faulty I rather not run the boiler! Hmmm… what now?

As you'd expect for gas, they are quite sensitive, i've seen it happen before where it locks out and it doesn't mean anything, but of course worth getting it checked. Could be something as daft as a slight drop in local gas pressure.

[Adsibob]

4 hours ago, MikeGrahamT21 said:

As you'd expect for gas, they are quite sensitive, i've seen it happen before where it locks out and it doesn't mean anything, but of course worth getting it checked. Could be something as daft as a slight drop in local gas pressure.

I called Veissman and they think it might be a manufacturing fault so are going to send out an engineer on Monday under the 12 year warranty I paid for. Of course if it’s not a fault, I get charged £144!

You may be right about local gas supply. If there is a sudden drop in temperature as we had, everyone will suddenly use more gas. 

 

[Mr Punter]

8 hours ago, marshian said:

The “sue Viessmann” made me laugh a lot - it’s thrown up an error code for the first time in 2.5 years - it’s under warranty if a reset (power down) fixed it then move on with your life it was a glitch - if it needs a reset every day or week then get an engineer in

 

I suspect the OP is a lawyer.

[marshian]

1 hour ago, Adsibob said:

I called Veissman and they think it might be a manufacturing fault so are going to send out an engineer on Monday under the 12 year warranty I paid for. Of course if it’s not a fault, I get charged £144!

You may be right about local gas supply. If there is a sudden drop in temperature as we had, everyone will suddenly use more gas. 

 

I don’t think I’d be calling an engineer out if no repetative fault - £144 is a lot of money - will be an interesting conversation

 

OP “here I saved screen shots of the fault”

 

GE “no fault in system now - £144 please - cash or card”

 

Good luck

[FarmerN]

 

14 minutes ago, marshian said:

I don’t think I’d be calling an engineer out if no repetative fault - £144 is a lot of money - will be an interesting conversation

 

OP “here I saved screen shots of the fault”

 

GE “no fault in system now - £144 please - cash or card”

 

Good luck

Screen clearly says-                " Notify Contractor. "

[Adsibob]

26 minutes ago, FarmerN said:

 

Screen clearly says-                " Notify Contractor. "

Indeed! And on calling them this morning they did speak to a technical guy who said it sounded like a manufacturing problem. My installer is abroad till 10th Jan, and I really don’t want to take any chances (with gas leaks or loss of heating/HW over the next couple of weeks. 

[MikeGrahamT21]

Surely it’s just going to be a manufacturer recall, guy will come out with part and not care whether it’s faulting or not, just replace it…maybe play dumb if not and say that’s what you were led to believe

[Adsibob]

Certainly, it’s more likely that hell will freeze over than me paying them any money. It’s quite possibly the most expensive residential gas boiler on the market, so I intend to get my money’s worth. Currently, it is the manufacturer that owes me:

 

1) cost of heating 300L of water with an immersion heater

2) damages for stress and inconvenience of coming home to a cold house;

3) time costs of dealing with this crap

4) interest on the above.

[Huckleberrys]

8 hours ago, Adsibob said:

Certainly, it’s more likely that hell will freeze over than me paying them any money. It’s quite possibly the most expensive residential gas boiler on the market, so I intend to get my money’s worth. Currently, it is the manufacturer that owes me:

 

1) cost of heating 300L of water with an immersion heater

2) damages for stress and inconvenience of coming home to a cold house;

3) time costs of dealing with this crap

4) interest on the above.

Good luck with that if they find no issue...you will find they state nowhere that they will be with you immediately so there would be no additional heating cost and minimal impact to quality of life! And you made yourself a day behind not calling them immediately! I think if I had to I would cough up rather than be blacklisted for when I really needed a under warranty call out!

 

To be fair to viessman though I once had an issue with a 100W needed a new circuit board...1month outside of the 10 year guarantee...they sent me one free of charge tonight myself rather than engineer call out.