BOILER REPAIR BIRMINGHAM

So I've decided to write a small blog about common problems and boiler faults we've found during our day to day jobs in and around  Birmingham and Solihull, in the hope that it may be able to help you if you are either experiencing these boiler faults or to help you make a decision when choosing a boiler. I'm going to try and cover back up support we as engineers receive from boiler manufacturers too, and how we have found they have been with our clients as, to be honest, you can have the best boiler in the world but if it breaks down and the manufacturer is going to take a week to get out to you, your not going to be too happy, especially if it's in the middle of winter.

We've found the most common boilers we get called out to are Worcester Bosch, Vaillant, and ferroli. I think with the first two, Worcester and Vaillant its more of a case that there is just so many out there, that we are more likely to get called out to them. And it's not that they're bad boilers because they really are pretty good and have built a good reputation over the years. With the Vaillant boilers, we've found that if the system water is pretty poor the boilers really struggle, but that's not necessarily the boilers fault as they aren't designed to work on dirty heating systems, it could have been an installer error or maybe the customer didn't want to pay for a power flush when they upgraded their boiler. We found with some of the older Vaillant's the pressure sensor would get blocked with particles from the heating system causing the common f75 fault, also the rubber hoses inside the boiler on the flow and return pipes can block up and become brittle causing them to split and flood the boiler. With the Worcester Bosch boilers, we've found the biggest problems with them to be water leaks developing on them as the main water-carrying components (hydro block) tend to split after a while. This can be prevented by installing a shock arrestor on the cold water before the boiler.

How can I protect my boiler from breaking down?

There are a few things you, the homeowner can do to protect your boiler. One would be to get your boiler serviced regularly. By getting the boiler serviced, your maintaining it and we can find and put right small problems with the boiler before they develop into something big. Making adjustments to gas pressures and cleaning out the heat exchanger these can all help towards stopping your boiler breaking down. We were called out to an ideal logic boiler in Solihull only yesterday that wasn't working yesterday, and the only fault it had was that it had never been serviced. The main heat exchanger had become so clogged up that there was just no air flow causing the boiler to lock out. We gave the boiler a really good service and it was up and running in an hour and no parts were required. Now that boiler fault would never have happened if the customer had had their boiler serviced. Luckily for them, this wasn't in winter so it wasn't cold and they had an electric shower so they still had some hot water while they waited for an engineer to attend, we were out within two hours of them making the call so they never had long to wait.

Another thing to consider is the water quality in your heating system, this accounts for about 70% of our call outs in Birmingham for boiler repairs. It can cause all kinds of problems, broken boiler pump, blocked heat exchangers, diverter valves issues, blocked pipes, the list goes on. In short, the water in the heating system is like the blood that flows through our bodies, in the same way, that if it becomes thick (sludge) it makes it hard to circulate around the system. If you're not sure about the water quality in your system and you live in Birmingham or Solihull, give us a call and we will be happy to come round and run some tests for you.  Things we can do to improve the water quality in your central heating system would system. We can provide you with a quote to power flush the radiators or a Magna cleanse rapid flush, we can add inhibitors to protect the radiators from more corrosion, we can also provide a free quote to install a magnetic central heating filter,  this been magnetic draws the sludge and debris to the magnet rather than flowing around the boiler, this would the be cleaned out once a year on the annual boiler service.

New boiler warranties.

There seems to have been a bit of competition over the last few year, with boiler manufacturers putting longer and longer times on their warranties. It used to be common practice for most boilers to come with a standard two-year warranty, but now we are seeing some with as much as 12 years. I have to be honest with some of the manufacturers I'm a bit skeptical of this, it's a great sales technique on their behalf but I'm not convinced that 11 years down the line when a pump goes just down to wear and tear, that the manufacturers will be honoring the warranty. I don't wish to name names in this, as I don't have any solid evidence of this, but I have been told by other heating engineers that this type of behavior is already going on. What I would say is that if you're in Birmingham or Solihull and you are having a new boiler, then make sure the heating system has been flushed. make sure you receive all the paperwork and gas certificates of the heating engineer, make sure they're gas safe registered, make sure they fill the benchmark book in that comes with the boiler when they complete the installation and make sure that you have the boiler serviced annually. Boiler manufacturers that I have had personal experience of that I will endorse are Worcester Bosch and Baxi. their engineers are not out to trip anyone up, they come out promptly and get the boiler repaired, in fact, Baxi offer a same day service if the job is called in before 11 AM this is because we are approved Baxi installers in Birmingham. If it's called in after 11 AM  they will be out at the next available time to you. This quality of customer support is a big selling point for us that our customers buy into, as they find it comforting to know that should something go wrong with their boiler it will be quickly put right.

boiler repair help.

For more information regarding boiler faults and repairs or boiler servicing, please contact us today by phone or using the contact us page of the website and one of a friendly staff will be happy to help. All our staff are trained and gas safe registered and fully insured professionals, so pleas contact us today.