Vaillant Boiler Ecotec plus 824 problems

[Lico]

Hello,

We are having a complete saga with our boiler. Can anyone help?

A) Ecotec pro plus 824 boiler is 2.5 years old under Warranty.
B) 10 days ago F28 and F54 faults. Vaillant came to replace the gas valve (in and out job-no checks).
C) Friday F29 and F54 faults. Vaillant came back to replace the ignition electrodes (in and out job)-no checks) . 20 minutes after the guy's departure F28 again..
D) called a Company (known in Central London for being very expensive -only one with engineers available). We live in Central London. All afternoon spent with engineer (they clock the hours ..).
E) Engineer changed the PCB (control board) and checked every single item.
F) one hour after his departure F28 again!!
G) Central London Company came back at 21.30 last night-said that Vaillant had replaced our old gas valve with an old gas valve!
H) this morning Central London Company replaced the supposedly old/new Vaillant gas valve with another brand new Vaillant gas valve.
I) This afternoon boiler is working BUT suddenly Boiler is vibrating very loudly when calling for heating . Vibration stops when we turn the hot water on.

Everything has been checked: pump, flue, fan, gas supply etc..
We have had four separate engineers.

Not sure what to do next -did the guy forget to adjust some settings?

Of course being in London, they always find something else which is wrong and charge £170 per hour...

Question is: why is the vibration happening after having had a new gas valve, ignition rodes and new PCB and when boiler is calling for heating? And why does the vibration occurs when heating is called and why does vibration stop when water is turned on?

I know we are getting ripped off ..

Many, many thanks for any tips, advice, suggestions

Hi OP, my husband is a gas engineer and he said it sounds like the gas valve has not been calibrated correctly although they come factory set you do need to do certain checks and gas and air might not be correct mix so has to be calibrated. The previous plumber should return back and do this or contact Vaillant. Good luck

Hello Keel,
Thank you very much for this.
We have found the Vaillant guys not very good; told us to turn out boiler off when going away for more than 24 hours. I understand that in London , Vaillant use subcontractors.
The Central London Company does not want to come back unless we pay them another call out charge of £170 plus VAT per hour.. They say that it is now a new problem because F28 has been solved with new gas valve but the vibration is something else therefore fee for new call out charge applies !!!!!
So far we have paid them £1600 for new Valve, new PCB and new gas valve (this does not even include Vaillant own valve replacement !! Warranty)

Very dishonest really but one is stuck with rip off merchants with no professional conscience.

Thanks your DH for the advice . Will wait until Monday and try to find another Company to recalibrate.

Best Lico

We have a vaillant boiler and have massive issues with it. All resolved now but had vaillant out 5 times as well as original installer about 10! We found vaillant very good when they did come, id be back on the phone to them on monday morning. We also had f28 and f54 codes, can't say I remembered it vibrating though. For us it was only resolved when the flue was replaced, as condensation was tracking back into the boiler. Force the point with them that it's their boiler and shouldn't be faulty, they tried make us pay £90 upfront but we refused, they still came out though.

Also, we demanded that a senior technician from vaillant came to see it after the first few visits and problems 're occurring, it's still under warranty so use that to your advantage, keep calling them back until it's fixed. We also had a paper trail of job sheets detailing what they had done each visit, and a print out (of numbers I have no idea of the meaning of!) But at least can keep track. Don't get off the phone until it's fixed

F54 & f28 are most likely to be the gas valve. It can also be caused by gas pressure problems caused by a fault with your gas meter. Do you have a gas hob? Does that work with a consistent flame?

Hello,
Many thanks for all the advice.
Gas meter has been checked and no problems there. Gas pressure is fine too. We have an electric hob.
The flue has been checked too.
The F28 and F54 faults are gone with the new gas valve but we had this incredible vibration noise when heating was called. The vibration stopped when hot water was turned on.
From reading a few websites (pretty sad thing to do on a weekend😞), it seems that the engineer did not calibrate the gas valve just as Keel's DH said.
Touch wood , vibration has stopped. Let's see what happens on Monday.
Thank you so much

No worries Lico I hope you get it sorted. We live in Yorkshire otherwise I'd send hubby round to sort it out for you. Good luck in getting it resolved.

Hope you get it sorted