Worcester Greenstar boiler: EA error code

Worcester Greenstar boiler: EA error code

Author
Discussion

joeninety0

1 posts

110 months

Tuesday 6th January 2015
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having exactly the same prob. just started 2 days ago woke up cold checked boiler in loft and ea fault . reset it and ok for a day . today its gone off 3 times 15-20 mins after resetting . tried turning eco light off and been ok for last hour. my boiler isn't even 12 month old yet!seen condensate pipe blamed but all clear. see what happens in next few days then maybe if same invoke warranty

OneDs

1,628 posts

175 months

Tuesday 6th January 2015
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Ours tripped out to EA from spring through to late autumn fairly regularly, been fine since the heating has been on for long periods, we have it serviced annually and had the condense pipe bore enlarged to stop it blocking up with ice in any prolonged cold spells.

gangnamstyle

10 posts

133 months

Thursday 8th January 2015
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hi all,happy new year!,my last post was in feb 2013,and it is of small comfort to find i am not alone in this annoying fault! After reading the latest posts in particular Dr Mikes,i think we can all now work out what the "EA" stands for ,its obviously "Every F******Autumn".On a more serious note,here is where i am at with mine,further to my previous posts,i thought i had solved the problem,but once again early in december once and once over christmas i woke up to find the fault.Here,s what i,ve found & what i,ve tried.
I have renewed the flame and ignition probes,also i found what i thought was the problem,the orange wire that connects the flame probe to the pcb had a high continuity reading,around 1 ohm,so i put a new crimp on the end and reading was then what would be expected,i also thought about the possibility of gas valve coils being weak ,so i searched the net and found out what readings should be,they too measured correctly,so this eliminates that theory.
Here is what i have discovered with my "EA",mine only ever fails first time start-up,my gas regulator looks fairly new,although not changed whilst we have lived here since 2008,i have witnessed the problem occurring and the flame had lit and the green light comes on,so the circuit has been proven,however after that the boiler goes through a modulating process,and during that time i noticed it kept going back to the start and re-lighting again and again until it failed.
I have contacted worcester,they were helpful,but the engineer was also baffled,he did however mention the flap thing that dr mike mentioned,and that is what i think also,i think that what could be happening is that overnight it is sticking shut occasionally the reason i think this is because mine would not relight after several attemps until i turned on the hot water during the start up process to make the boiler run full thrust,which could be forcing the flap open,the worcester guy said that the fan gradually ramps up and lets air in through the flap,hence my thoughts,feedback please if this is same for you guys,cheers sorry for long winded write-up but really annoying now!!

Edited by gangnamstyle on Thursday 8th January 23:23


Edited by gangnamstyle on Thursday 22 January 20:03

tony13579

183 posts

224 months

Thursday 15th January 2015
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Ok, I have just had my repair visit under Warruntee

All fixed (allegedly )
Apparently it was the "baring plate" sticking (again) he has removed it because "you don't need it" (apparently)
Gas pressure is ok now.

I asked if this was the flap to the outside world and he said yes
Then I was told to monitor it for 6 weeks...

(I thought he said it was fixed?....?????)

tony13579

183 posts

224 months

gangnamstyle

10 posts

133 months

Friday 16th January 2015
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Thanks tony please let us all know if this works,if thats the case i will have ours removed as well,hopefully not a costly fix,however i cant help but wonder if the flap is not required then why put it in there in the first place,what if there,s a problem with draught etc blowing through when boiler not in use.

tony13579

183 posts

224 months

Friday 16th January 2015
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Well it's stayed alight the last 36 hours.... I will report back in a weeks time or if it fails... If I dont , send me a message
My life gets hectic occasionally!

gangnamstyle

10 posts

133 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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Good idea,but ours has not failed for two weeks now and nothing has been touched,so a few weeks means nothing really,its so random that six months would be more of a benchmark,fingers crossed !!!

joscal

2,072 posts

199 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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I had this very problem and it turned out my outside vent was damaged in the recent gales. Took my plumber friend bloody ages to figure it out!


Dr Mike Oxgreen

Original Poster:

4,101 posts

164 months

Monday 19th January 2015
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How has your boiler been behaving over the weekend, Tony?

I have to say, your description of the part they replaced removed sounds like the rubber flap that the first WB engineer changed on mine, and it had no effect. But fingers crossed for yours...

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Monday 19th January 06:39

tony13579

183 posts

224 months

Monday 19th January 2015
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It's still running. I have another wee problem. I bleed two radiators. The pressure dropped to zero. I put the White filling key in and turned it. I then opened the square nut next to the filling key and topped up to one bar of pressure...
Now I can't get the filling key out . It's only turning 45 degrees. I can't see the markings because I built a unit below. I have tried a torch and a mirror....

don'tbesilly

13,900 posts

162 months

Tuesday 20th January 2015
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tony13579 said:
It's still running. I have another wee problem. I bleed two radiators. The pressure dropped to zero. I put the White filling key in and turned it. I then opened the square nut next to the filling key and topped up to one bar of pressure...
Now I can't get the filling key out . It's only turning 45 degrees. I can't see the markings because I built a unit below. I have tried a torch and a mirror....
Should be 1.5 bar.
I always leave the filling key in, it saves looking for it when you need it.

gangnamstyle

10 posts

133 months

Tuesday 20th January 2015
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Tony the key only turns about 45 deg ,then you pull it back out,make sure you turn the nut back to closed,1.5 bar no more as the system pressurises and if it goes over around 2.5 it can blow out of the pressure release outside,and they sometimes leak after that.a little water will drip from key when you take it out,but not much.

Bethmiss

1 posts

110 months

Wednesday 21st January 2015
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Morning All,

I've arrived at this site, and discussion, as I Googled looking for anybody else who'd experienced the EA fault with their Greenstar 30 CDi. Thank you all.

My mother's boiler was "installed", and I use the term very loosely, in April 2010 by a firm of plumbers working for Scottish Gas. It was done as part of the Scottish Govt Energy Assistance Package Stage IV. She only wanted a new boiler, but was told she'd to have all new radiators, underfloor pipework, hot water cylinder etc. There have been problems galore since April 2010, and the latest one was on 3rd January when the boiler failed to start.

I live with my mother and, on investigating boiler failure, discovered it frantically flashing lights and showing EA fault. We did have a frozen condensate pipe in winter 2010/11, and our joiner showed me how to disconnect pipe and drain water into basin in cupboard. Scottish Gas fitted something through the wall to the pipe outside, supposedly to stop the problem happening again - and it's been OK till this year. If they'd only asked us about where to put the condensate pipe, we'd have said anywhere except on the most exposed wall of the house! The wind sometimes howls up there, and I'm guessing it was wind and wind chill that caused the problem. Not the easiest job to disconnect the pipe under and behind the boiler now, as there gizmo wiring gets in the way!

Since July 2010 we've had air in the hot water system, and knocking pipework. That's when the firm had to come back to do the underfloor pipework they didn't do in April, and also to fit the new hot water cylinder. We get frequent hot water showers in the kitchen (sometimes scalding, due to vagaries of hot water thermostat), but Scottish Gas/British Gas/Centrica doesn't seem to want to come and fix the remaining problems.

Sorry for long gripe, when all I started off to do was suggest wind or wind chill might be the problem with the boiler not coming on.

Any suggestions for how get Centrica to acknowledge responsibility to my mother's house, and pay her decent compensation for system still not being right, would be gratefully received.

thingaby

1 posts

110 months

Wednesday 21st January 2015
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I have had the Worcester CDi startup problem each winter for the last 3 years. The heating/hot water worked fine during the warmer months but as it started to get cold the boiler would often fail to fire up until several resets had been performed. It failed to start on its own every morning. Despite the best efforts of my gas fitter and his many calls to Worcester he wasn't able to nail it. We tried heating the condensate outlet and eventually moved it, changed the ignition and the rubber flappy thing. This year I think we have found the solution by replacing the gas valve (thankyou ebay). It has worked flawlessly during the last 7 weeks of winter weather. As I have good advice from this site I thought I would share our solution. atb

tony13579

183 posts

224 months

Wednesday 21st January 2015
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Can you post a link to the gas valve from eBay please
Tony

Grumpy Steve

2 posts

109 months

Sunday 22nd February 2015
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And yet another example - my 5 year old Greenstar 30CDi has had a similar intermittent fault for a while (i.e. refusal to light up from cold), but it seems to be getting more frequent. Again, it's the EA code, plus flashing reset button and flashing blue indicator on the front of the boiler - it only ever happens in winter, and only after powering down overnight. If I run the heating on a lower setting overnight the fault never occurs. This morning was a typical example - the heating switched off around 11pm last night, and was set to come on around 6:20am. Around 7:30am , I discovered no heating and no hot water, the fault indicators flashing, a pressure gauge reading of 1.5 Bar, and a boiler water temperature reading of 17 Deg C. I did the usual - I pressed and held the reset button for 3 seconds, and after 2 attempts, the boiler went through its normal firing-up procedure (previously it's only ever taken one attempt) - and it's now working normally again.
The boiler is mounted in the utility room, so it gets a bit cooler than the rest of the house, but it always stays several degrees above freezing. Overnight outside temperature last night was a degree or so below freezing, but as the boiler condensate drain is routed totally within the house, there have never been any issues with blockage due to ice formation. The last time this problem occurred was about 3 weeks ago, and since then, the condensate trap has been removed and cleaned (no blockages there), the heat exchanger has been cleaned, and a new electrode assembly has been fitted. The old electrode assembly wasn't that bad, but the porcelain insulators were showing signs of age, so it was worth changing the assembly. (Note that the new versions don't have a viewing window, so no visual indication of the ignition sequence.)
My thoughts now are that it might just be worth changing the diaphragm/flap valve, and maybe the ignition leads also, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the fault could be on the control board itself - in the form of a bad connection, or a 'dry' soldered joint. I've seen sellers on Ebay who offer exchange control boards for about 50% of the cost of brand new ones - they claim to test them, replace any defective components, and resolder all joints on the board. Maybe that's an indicator of a common defect on these control boards - having worked on electronic boards in the past, my experience is that intermittent dry joints on circuit boards seem to show up when the temperature changes. I see from the online service booklets on the Worcester Bosch website that the CDi control boards have the facility to connect in an optional external frost stat - the cynic in me wonders if that's to prevent the water in the system freezing, or just to keep the circuit board from getting too cold....

tony13579

183 posts

224 months

Friday 27th February 2015
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My baring plate was removed not replaced.... It's still working :-)

Marty Funkhouser

5,426 posts

180 months

Friday 13th March 2015
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42 Cdi here, fitted October 2013. Had the "EA" fault a couple of times in the last couple of weeks. First time I increased the pressure in the system as it looked a touch low, that fixed up till today when its reappeared.

Have engaged the "Eco" button to see if that stops it...

Grumpy Steve

2 posts

109 months

Thursday 19th March 2015
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Well, a month has passed, and in that time I've replaced the ignition leads, even though the old ones looked to be in good nick, and I've also replaced the diaphragm/flap valve. The old one seemed reasonably OK, but I noticed that the stainless steel frame of the valve had a couple of rust spots, and marks on the rubber where it had been in contact with the frame. I also noticed that the alloy pipe section above the valve was showing some signs of corrosion, presumably due to water condensing onto its surface when the boiler is off.
The good news is that there have been no problems since changing the valve, but then again, the weather is a bit warmer. For the moment, I've parked the idea that the circuit board may be faulty - let's see if the problem repeats itself next winter.
I had thought about removing the flap valve, but I'm a bit nervous about any possible consequences of doing that. Its purpose seems to be to prevent reversal of the flow of gases, which is probably very unlikely, but maybe it's theoretically possible under some obscure fault condition. I'm thinking that as the gas/air mixture is only ignited after it has passed through to the underside of the burner, and the fan within the boiler keeps a steady flow through the flap valve and burner, the chances of any ignition of gas between the flap valve and the burner is very slim. (I guess the metallic mesh of the burner acts in pretty much the same way as the mesh in the old miner's Davy Lamp, allowing combustion to be contained safely to one side of the mesh.) In the event of severe damage to the burner, I wonder if it may not contain the area of combustion to the underside of the burner, possibly allowing a backfire or similar to reach the area of the flap valve or even the fan, if the flap valve had been removed. I also wonder if the Gas Safe guys might have an view on this, especially if the WB engineers are removing the valve to fix the problem.....
Going back to the design of the flap valve, I'm wondering if the fault I was experiencing might have been caused by surface corrosion of the aluminium alloy above the valve. Any products of such corrosion would drain back onto the flap valve, and possibly this contamination was causing the valve to stick from time to time. Maybe the use of non-corroding materials for the passageway above the flap valve would be a better idea - I would question the suitability of a bare aluminium alloy casting in a damp environment, regardless of the application.

Edited by Grumpy Steve on Thursday 19th March 18:27