Need Boiler Advice

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Imy

Imy

Imy

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So I got home from work yesterday to a broken boiler. It's an "Ideal ISAR HE24". The control panel/LED is dead. I've tried replacing the external fuse but still no joy.

From reading around the net it looks like the PCB needs replacing and possibly one or more items which draw power from it which could've caused it to blow.

I've been considering my options but am a little stuck as to what to do:
  • British Gas want £199 fixed price if it takes between 30 mins and 2hrs to repair. £409 if longer. British Gas have also offered to fix it for £99 but I have to sign up to HomeCare 200 @ £21/m (£252/year) bringing the total cost to £351.
  • Ideal have said £275 fixed price fix or £295 for fix + 12 months cover but can't get out to me until Wednesday
  • Have had a quote for about £250ish for a new PCB and a further £45ish to fit.
  • I have found the PCB on ebay for £96 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131150065629#ht_783wt_1399) and could have a go at replacing it myself.
  • Get a new boiler...
The boiler is 7 years old so 3rd party cover (if I had it) wouldn't replace it anyway.

Suggestions?
 
personally speaking anything to do with the boiler is Gas Safe approved bod job. I wouldn't touch the boiler.

We have BG homecare, yeah we pay out each month but we get the boiler serviced each year and we've had them out quite a few times on our boiler - last year we had new parts replaced which were around £500.

If it was me I'd probably go for BG or Ideal with the 12 months cover.

That's mostly because I value piece of mind and know if I'm off travelling and theres a problem with the heating the Mrs just calls them up and they're out to fix it.
 
Some say to put x amount away per month to cover stuff like this and if you don't need the it, you have a lump sum of cash.

However, i have always had Eon Central Heating Care and have used it several times and get a free boiler service every year - i have had my money worth and as a customer they get out to you as a priority. I would have said go with these, but they have been taken over by HES and to be honest, so far have been pretty rubbish; no idea about British Gas.

So for me, i would sign up to the one offering to fix the boiler and pay a monthly sum for care (peace of mind should something go wrong and as you have already mentioned, it may blow again).
 
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I've saved about £1,400 or so by not having boiler cover over the last 7 years but of course it's more likely now to break down than ever given its age. Unfortunately due to its age BG won't offer a free replacement if it becomes uneconomical to repair under their service plans.

With regards to safety, the PCB is just a box with a few wire connectors plugged in. Looks easier to replace than wiring a plug. That's assuming my internet powered self-diagnosis is correct. I believe it's legal for me to replace anything of that nature myself so long as I don't touch anything that deals with combustion/gas.

Getting a BG fix with or without the cover would at least give me time (and hot water) to consider my options going forward. I think a replacement boiler has to be on the cards within the next few years given my boiler model's reliability issues.
 
noj said:
personally speaking anything to do with the boiler is Gas Safe approved bod job. I wouldn't touch the boiler.
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What absolute nonsense - if it doesn't mess with the burning bits you don't need a certificate.

And strictly speaking providing you don't charge for work you don't need a gas safe certificate at all - the law states you must be competent but nothing else.

Do it yourself OP, or if you really aren't confident you could hire a handyman to come do it, replacing a PCB in boiler really isn't a difficult job. Most are plug and play like changing a lightbulb- just isolate the boiler and remove the fuse before doing it.

To be honest for those of us with a bit of electrical matter in the grey matter it isn't a difficult job to repair them, they're fairly simple things.

Wouldn't bother with British Gas at all tbh, ripoff merchants.
 
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pitchfork said:
What absolute nonsense - if it doesn't mess with the burning bits you don't need a certificate.

And strictly speaking providing you don't charge for work you don't need a gas safe certificate at all - the law states you must be competent but nothing else.

Do it yourself OP, or if you really aren't confident you could hire a handyman to come do it, replacing a PCB in boiler really isn't a difficult job. Most are plug and play like changing a lightbulb- just isolate the boiler and remove the fuse before doing it.

To be honest for those of us with a bit of electrical matter in the grey matter it isn't a difficult job to repair them, they're fairly simple things.

Wouldn't bother with British Gas at all tbh, ripoff merchants.
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You've pointed out all the troubles with Gas Safe in one post! A quango designed not to keep us safe but to make it's members rich, there should be at least two competing bodies to keep prices down and the maket fair. The prices so called Central Heating Engineers charge are outrageous when 90% of what they do is no more difficult or dangerous than swapping out a CPU in a PC or changing a washer in a tap.
 
Ideal boilers wouldn't touch one, I've know circuit boards to fail at a much younger age.

Valliant for me, easy to work on, rarely go wrong, had a Valliant TurboMax Pro 28 2e years ago,last place I had a Valliant 824, never broke in nearly 10 years, been here 4 years, got a Valiant 824, again been faultless.
 
Well you don't need a gas certificate for DIY, I do all my own gas work because I am competent.

Infact even if you are charging, provided you don't go need the gas supply or combustion system within the boiler you don't need a certificate either.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the current system, try joining a professional body anywhere, they're all extortionate.
 
It's a new build property for which I didn't have a say in the brand/model of the boiler.

I've just booked British Gas for a one-off repair for Friday morning. I was very close to ordering that PCB off ebay but decided if that wasn't the fault or there were other faults the costs could easily go over the £199 BG are likely (fingers crossed) to charge. BG also include a 12 month warranty on the repair work.

Going with an independant was going to be even more expensive in this case due to what they wanted for the PCB.

Decided against the extra cover though. I've been better off without it so far to the point of saving enough for a full replacement boiler and it's even less worthwhile now given they won't offer a replacement boiler under their policy due to its age.
 
like I said "personally speaking" in other words:

I don't know what I am doing with boilers so I wouldn't touch one.

My skill set is not in electronics nor in boiler repair. If OP feels comfortable doing it then its his choice to, my choice would be to get someone in to do the work.
 
That's fair enough really.

I'm not a Gas Safe Engineer or sparky but after taking a look at the PCB I thought it wasn't a complicated task and I would be comfortable replacing it.

What I wasn't confident about though was it not simply blowing again after a week or month hence why in the end I decided to pay a bit more and get a warranty-backed fix. On balance I thought the potential risk of further costs/problems was greater than the potential saving.

I am just guessing it's the PCB at fault or that there aren't other faults present.
 
British Gas engineer has just left. The problem was the PCB as I thought and fortunately he had the part on him to replace it right away. The replacement part is a newer version which should hopefully last (v9 - which basically means they got it wrong 8 times).

He was here 1 hour total so this has cost me £200 to fix which is about £90 more than what I might've been able to do it myself for but £100 less than an independent.

He did do a bunch of safety checks I wouldn't have thought to do or been able to do myself and the work is guaranteed for 12 months so has probably been worth paying the extra over doing it myself in this case.
 
Without knowing what the part cost them, it's difficult to say.

Although I could've got it from a random seller on ebay for £110ish which may have been a refurb or fake, local merchants what the indies use were charging £250ish.

It's the overall cost to fix that matters and difficult to place a value on the warranty.
 
No doubt the new part came with 12 months warranty...

Often ebay sellers are good for parts - you often find they do parts at trade price (or just over) without asking for a trade account.
 
Ideal ISAR HE24
We had one, but the heat exchangers are reknowned for leaking when they get over 2 years old as they are made from thin aluminium instead of stainless steel to make them more efficient, but the alumium corrodes quickly, especially without the Fernox additive in the system.
Mine dripped water onto the PCB and that's what fried it, so check that is not what hapened before you spend any money on it. These were only £500-500 new. A leaking heat exchanger makes the boiler scrap and is excluded from any boiler care etc..
 
pitchfork said:
No doubt the new part came with 12 months warranty...
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If the part repeatidly blew, I doubt any ebay seller would keep replacing it, if at all. The one I linked to before even made it clear there were no returns on PCBs. The last thing you want with a broken boiler is to go through a Paypal dispute process.

I would expect British Gas on the other hand to keep coming back until "the problem" was fixed. Whether that means replacing just that one part over and over or other parts also becomes their problem. So my point is 12 months warranty on a part is not the same as 12 months warranty for a fix.

snapdragon69 said:
Ideal ISAR HE24
We had one, but the heat exchangers are reknowned for leaking when they get over 2 years old as they are made from thin aluminium instead of stainless steel to make them more efficient, but the alumium corrodes quickly, especially without the Fernox additive in the system.
Mine dripped water onto the PCB and that's what fried it, so check that is not what hapened before you spend any money on it. These were only £500-500 new. A leaking heat exchanger makes the boiler scrap and is excluded from any boiler care etc..
Click to expand...

Yep mine has had a little leak for a number of years now. It's still going though and I couldn't see any leak near the electrics or PCB. It just trickles down one corner onto a pipe slowly over time as this orange sludge.
 
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Imy said:
If the part repeatidly blew, I doubt any ebay seller would keep replacing it, if at all. The one I linked to before even made it clear there were no returns on PCBs. The last thing you want with a broken boiler is to go through a Paypal dispute process.

I would expect British Gas on the other hand to keep coming back until "the problem" was fixed. Whether that means replacing just that one part over and over or other parts also becomes their problem. So my point is 12 months warranty on a part is not the same as 12 months warranty for a fix.
Click to expand...
Why go through the seller? Just go to the manufacturer for a parts warranty.

Would you pay extra for someone to come and unpack your tv and set it up?
 
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