Vaillant - F61 Error

[Merlin5]

My Vaillant Ecotec Plus 831 had an F61 error this morning which said something about valve and fuel. I had no hot water, but after turning the boiler off and on it went away and I've got hot water again. I googled it and it says it's either the gas valve, wiring harness or most likely the PCB. I called my gas engineer who services it every year and he says it'll definitely be the PCB as he knows my boiler model well. He said it can be reset a few times but will eventually stop working completely within about a week. So he's coming on Wednesday to replace it. £270 for the board plus £90 labour. Not too bad I guess as I was expecting a lot more.

My boiler is 12 years old now and Vaillant boilers are apparently good for up to 15 years. Hopefully it'll keep going for a few more years after this repair.

 

[Merlin5]

Had the PCB replaced last week, all working fine now. So now my Salus RT500RF thermostat has broken. It takes two AA batteries and one of the metal battery contact prongs inside the Salus was loose. I touched it and it snapped off. I had wondered why new batteries kept showing only one bar of power and why the thermostat keep resetting itself. Now I know!





I just called my engineer who said I can't manually control the heating directly from my particular Vaillant boiler. So he's coming here tomorrow. My Salus has worked for 12 years to be fair, but he was amazed and said I got lucky. He says Salus are the absolute worst and was surprised it had still been working at all. He says Honeywell is the best and is going to bring a new Honeywell thermostat and receiver and programme it with the boiler. It'll replace the Salus receiver fixed to a wall in my kitchen next to the boiler. £140 for the Honeywell plus £80 labour. He says he normally charges £120 labour. Seems reasonable to me, what do you guys think?