Heatline sargon combi advice

[Thereddevil]

Firstly hi All, I'm new to the forums, I recently stumbled across the site whist looking for help.

So.. I recently purchased a house which had a heatline sargon 30 combi installed. Long story short 8 weeks later is packed up displaying a f8 error code. Checked the manual and basicially says the fan is out of range. So naturally I call out a plumber to take a look. He tells me the fan has gone, ok new fan done, does nothing same problem. He then says the pcb board has gone...Ok if that's the case done. Solves the problem, or so I thought. 3 days later the boiler packs up again with the exact same error code.

Now if I'm honest I've lost trust in this tradesman as I'm getting the impression he's guessing what's wrong and just replacing anything. Anyway I call the guy back, takes a look says he needs to get in touch with the parts place and that's the last I've heard. Do I have good reason to be worried? Or is this common practice any help or advice would be much appreciated, because as you imagine it's cold as he'll and have a young child in the house doesn't help matters

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

Firstly hi All, I'm new to the forums, I recently stumbled across the site whist looking for help.

So.. I recently purchased a house which had a heatline sargon 30 combi installed. Long story short 8 weeks later is packed up displaying a f8 error code. Checked the manual and basicially says the fan is out of range. So naturally I call out a plumber to take a look. He tells me the fan has gone, ok new fan done, does nothing same problem. He then says the pcb board has gone...Ok if that's the case done. Solves the problem, or so I thought. 3 days later the boiler packs up again with the exact same error code.

Now if I'm honest I've lost trust in this tradesman as I'm getting the impression he's guessing what's wrong and just replacing anything. Anyway I call the guy back, takes a look says he needs to get in touch with the parts place and that's the last I've heard. Do I have good reason to be worried? Or is this common practice any help or advice would be much appreciated, because as you imagine it's cold as he'll and have a young child in the house doesn't help matters

no its not common practice to fob you off with i need too contact etc.... its common practice for a good gas engineer to leave you with a working boiler,knowing the price off heatline spares i know you will have paid a lot of money,get back on your plumbers case if he cant solve it please put a post up in our i need a engineer section

 

[Whyme]

As gasman says, the price of those two parts could have paid for Heatline (glow worm) to do a one fix visit about £230 and have a nice meal.

 

[Thereddevil]

Thanks for the quick responses both. As you can imagine im extremely frustrated with the whole situation. This has gone on now for almost a month from the original breakdown. Ive basically shelled out 300 pounds In parts and im in the same position I was in the beginning even with the same fault code (f8). I basically asked was there a issue with the board he fitted, to which he replied no, so I ask well whats wrong then? To which I get a "well if its not doing it in front of me I wont know" reply. Im also more annoyed that the lack of care of leaving a baby In a cold house doesn't seem to bother him

 

[Leo21]

Save up, place the heat line in a skip. Replace with decent boiler.

 

[Whyme]

unfortunately Theredevil those boilers are budget, very budget. the kind of thing landlords put in and parts for budget boilers are extortionate hence how they make the money producing them unfortunately.

 

[stevetheplumber]

blocked condense will do the same leave it of for a while and it drains away then fills up and resists the fan

 

[Ray Stafford]

Save up, place the heat line in a skip. Replace with decent boiler.

unfortunately Theredevil those boilers are budget, very budget. the kind of thing landlords put in and parts for budget boilers are extortionate hence how they make the money producing them unfortunately.

I'll take a different line on this.

Whilst Leo21 and Whyme are correct that Heatline is perceived as a budget line in this country, that is simply because most of the Heatline models (like Capriz, Viso etc) are built down to a price. If you tell a factory to make a £400 boiler, you shouldn't expect high quality components etc. The same factory that makes "budget" heatlines is also making market leading premium products for other parts of Europe.

If I recall the Sargon correctly - and it was only on sale in the UK for less than a year - it was one of the first designed-from-scratch band A boilers to use the Gianini heat-ex which later became standard in lots of the premium UK brands. I think I'm right in saying that it was withdrawn from the UK because it was too good for the market sector that the Heatline brand is supposed to occupy, and competed too closely with the premium brands from the same stable. It was also under-sold on performance - a printing error meant that all the 35kw versions were sold in the UK as 30kw and all the 30kw were sold as 24kw. (although that might have been the Solaris model that was out around the same time)

So don't necessarily rush to replace the boiler. However, because so few were sold in the UK, engineers are not going to be familiar with them, and some parts may be hard to get. I would go for the fixed price repair from Glowworm, under whose management within the Vaillant group Heatline now falls.

 

[Thereddevil]

Well after a finally getting hold of the plumber and having a long conversation with him, he's basically told me that the pcb board he put in is now also broke and that a "intermittent problem " is causing the fault. So he's washed his hands with us and apologised for us having spent so much money. Which to me is a load of bull