Vaillant Ecotec boiler repeated problem

[Sarkmeister]

Morning all

For the last few months we've has an issue with our Valiant Ecotec Plus 831 boiler, and I'm hoping that there's an expert or two on here who can give me a second opinion....

The boiler keeps shutting itself off and showing either a F.61 or F.62 error. When we reset it it works perfectly until it trips again. This is now happening once daily on average, usual in the night so we wake up to a cold house.

The person who installed the boiler says the error means it could be the PCB or the Gas Safety Valve, and that we need to wait until it fails completely otherwise there is no way of knowing which one to fix so it may become unnecessarily costly to fix.

Does this sound right? Is there anything else we can be doing.

The boiler is between 8 and 10 years old I think.

He's usually really reliable, so normally I wouldn't doubt him. However, this has been going on for 2 months now, and I'm tired of crawling through our attic space to get to the boiler and reset it every morning.

Cheers for any advice.

[richatnort]

You could contact valiant directly and get them to come and look if you still have warranty and can prove you still have warranty. That’s why my guy did when he noticed a fault he just phoned them up and they came out to fix it not him.

[Sarkmeister]

Thanks. Looks like the warranty/guarantee is 5 years, and to be honest I don't know how old the boiler is. I just know it was "newly installed" before we bought the house 8 years ago.

[andySC]

It’s very likely to be a faulty gas valve. It’s a common issue on the Ecotec range. Generally they’re a reliable appliance with only a few glitches but one of these is the gas valve. I can’t remember ever replacing a PCB on an Ecotec but I’ve certainly replaced a few GV’s in the last year.

The boiler will almost certainly be out of warranty (worth checking though, they’ll likely need proof it’s been serviced every year too) but Vaillant do a fixed price repair whereby they’ll guarantee to fix the fault so if a replacement valve doesn’t fix it they’ll come back out & swap the PCB. They’ll give the boiler a going over too & fix anything else that looks suspect.

[The Gauge]

When I once had a problem with an out of warranty Vaillant boiler I phoned Vaillant to discuss getting one of their repair guys to come look at it. The lady on the phone suggested that instead of paying their call out fee of say £200 and then paying for any parts needed, it would work out better value to take out their 6 month warranty plan, I think it cost £50/month and they guarantee to cover any repair whereas if I just paid their call out fee they didn't cover things like the heat exchanger which costs about £500 alone, plus labour.

So I took out their 6 month plan there and then over the phone and she arranged a repair guy to come the following day. Turned out I needed a new heat exchanger which he ordered and replaced at no extra cost. He wouldn't otherwise have replaced it under their call out arrangement and that would normally make the boiler a write off. After the 6 months the warranty expired and I didn't renew.

Edited by The Gauge on Sunday 21st January 09:36

[119]

Most boilers will have around ten years of useful life these days so you’d be better getting a price to just replace it.

[B'stard Child]

119 said:

Most boilers will have around ten years of useful life these days so you’d be better getting a price to just replace it.

For a £140 - £190 Part plus labour to fit you'd replace the whole boiler for ~£2000 (plus labour to fit)

Providing the rest of the boiler passes muster I think I'd be replacing the gas valve

[119]

B'stard Child said:

119 said:

Most boilers will have around ten years of useful life these days so you’d be better getting a price to just replace it.

For a £140 - £190 Part plus labour to fit you'd replace the whole boiler for ~£2000 (plus labour to fit)

Providing the rest of the boiler passes muster I think I'd be replacing the gas valve

Absolutely, and I am speaking from experience, albeit not with a valiant.

And your 2k would include fitting.

[B'stard Child]

119 said:

B'stard Child said:

119 said:

Most boilers will have around ten years of useful life these days so you’d be better getting a price to just replace it.

For a £140 - £190 Part plus labour to fit you'd replace the whole boiler for ~£2000 (plus labour to fit)

Providing the rest of the boiler passes muster I think I'd be replacing the gas valve

Absolutely, and I am speaking from experience, albeit not with a valiant.

And your 2k would include fitting.

In the early part of winter - and a distress purchase - that's looking to be reamed

[119]

B'stard Child said:

119 said:

B'stard Child said:

119 said:

Most boilers will have around ten years of useful life these days so you’d be better getting a price to just replace it.

For a £140 - £190 Part plus labour to fit you'd replace the whole boiler for ~£2000 (plus labour to fit)

Providing the rest of the boiler passes muster I think I'd be replacing the gas valve

Absolutely, and I am speaking from experience, albeit not with a valiant.

And your 2k would include fitting.

In the early part of winter - and a distress purchase - that's looking to be reamed

Well, you could double it in that case.

[Sarkmeister]

Cheers for the replies everyone.

We are selling the house in May/June hopefully, so I'm not keen to install a new boiler. The boiler itself looks pretty new and has been working perfectly before the.

I've been on the Vaillant website and its £365 for their guaranteed repair (£99 if they can't fix it). Looking online the gas valve is £130 plus fitting. I may speak to the engineer I use and consider taking the risk and installing a new valve.

[The Gauge]

Sarkmeister said:

Cheers for the replies everyone.

We are selling the house in May/June hopefully, so I'm not keen to install a new boiler. The boiler itself looks pretty new and has been working perfectly before the.

I've been on the Vaillant website and its £365 for their guaranteed repair (£99 if they can't fix it). Looking online the gas valve is £130 plus fitting. I may speak to the engineer I use and consider taking the risk and installing a new valve.

If speaking to Vaillant about their one off guarantee repair, check which components are excluded, such as heat exchanger etc.
My fault was a sensor on the heat exchanger which can't be purchased separately so requires a new heat exchanger ££££

[Sarkmeister]

I know your all interested, so I thought I'd give an update....

The problem carried on, so the engineering I was using sourced a refurbished gas valve and installed that hoping it would fix it. It didn't.

The problem is now worse and it trips about 5 or 6 times a day. Plan C seems to be replacing the flame sensor probes and a strip down.

Im tempted just to go with the £399 Vaillant fixed price repair (£99 if they fail) to avoid throwing good money at bad.

Any further thoughts from anyone?

[eskidavies]

Had your engineer checked working pressure at the meter ,

[colin79666]

Have you spoken with Vaillant? Some ecotec 831s around that age had a 10 year warranty if fitted by a Vaillant registered installer and serviced annually. You might get lucky and find they have your boilers serial number registered. My mother is in that position (fitted 2015) and has had a couple of warranty jobs done in the last couple of years.

[princeperch]

I've got an ecotec 832.

When it was repositioned during building works it kept tripping out. After a day of trouble shooting it turns out that the filling loop was not fully closed on both sections. One section was open and one closed.on an older boiler you could get away with that but on this model both sections of the filling loop apparently need to be closed otherwise the boiler trips out.

It's almost certainly not this issue on yours I'm sure but I thought I'd mention it just in case.

[OldGermanHeaps]

119 said:

Most boilers will have around ten years of useful life these days so you’d be better getting a price to just replace it.

Seriously?
Mine is coming up for 30 and still pretty reliable.
Was swithering to replace it while you can still buy gas boilers but if they only last 10 years now whats the point?

[The Gauge]

Sarkmeister said:

Im tempted just to go with the £399 Vaillant fixed price repair (£99 if they fail) to avoid throwing good money at bad.

If they still do it, go with their six month repair plan instead, cost me £300 a couple of years ago and they replaced the heat exchanger which solved my issue, and had 6 months extra cover too.