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Discuss Oh do I hate Worcester! in the Plumbing Jobs | The Job-board area at PlumbersForums.net

Millsy 82

Plumbers Arms member
Plumber
Gas Engineer
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Went out to a leak on a Cdi. Armed myself with an o ring pack whipped the plate out and found the diverter rusted and a small amount broken off.

So new diverter valve needed grab another and out comes the old spend a good 5 minutes cleaning up the cold inlet so it's sparkling clean put it all back in with a bit of grease turn the mains on and wait, yep there it is the little drip that happens every bl00dy time.

Can't they put a slightly larger o ring in as obviously the one they supply is pants! So strip it back out again clean it up even more put it all back in again and guess what still leaking!!!!!!!

How on earth were they ever the best boiler? Must of been a lot of money swapping hands.
 
Seriously, I wont even go out to them .

It seems to be every time now I TRY to replace a diverter on them they leak. I even use the horrible lsx and they still leak.

I'm now getting to the point of saying they are now a write off for the boiler or I charge a days labour plus parts. All for a part just over £100.
 
It seems to be every time now I TRY to replace a diverter on them they leak. I even use the horrible lsx and they still leak.

I'm now getting to the point of saying they are now a write off for the boiler or I charge a days labour plus parts. All for a part just over £100.
Become an instrument technician and it’ll be a piece of p@ss.....
 
Went out to a leak on a Cdi. Armed myself with an o ring pack whipped the plate out and found the diverter rusted and a small amount broken off.

So new diverter valve needed grab another and out comes the old spend a good 5 minutes cleaning up the cold inlet so it's sparkling clean put it all back in with a bit of grease turn the mains on and wait, yep there it is the little drip that happens every bl00dy time.

Can't they put a slightly larger o ring in as obviously the one they supply is pants! So strip it back out again clean it up even more put it all back in again and guess what still leaking!!!!!!!

How on earth were they ever the best boiler? Must of been a lot of money swapping hands.
WB were never the best boilers just the most popular because all the ex british gas fellas were encouraged to fit them, and the quality has got worse and the service system is under massive strain...centralheatking
 
Can't they put a slightly larger o ring in as obviously the one they supply is pants! So strip it back out again clean it up even more put it all back in again and guess what still leaking!!!!!!!

Have you tried calling WB Tech Support and telling them that the o-rings in the spares pack seem to be undersized and asking them to confirm the correct specification?

O-rings are great as long as they are the correct material, elasticity and size. The problem is that gives at least four parameters that can be wrong in a given case. :(
 
I always silicon the o'rings and the orifices (ooerr matron) after cleaning everything to try to prevent the leaks. Bloody awful boilers worcester
 
I always silicon the o'rings and the orifices (ooerr matron) after cleaning everything to try to prevent the leaks. Bloody awful boilers worcester

I always thought that was pretty much what lsx was just silicone. It's the only boiler I ever use it on but still always leaks. I make sure the joints are sparkling by the time I put it back together. Bl00dy hate the boilers.
 
Out of curiosity what did you tell the customer??

That changing the part is a pain in the rear. I hate doing them and I wish I told them just to have another boiler. We were laughing but she hasn't had the bill yet as it put me a couple of hours behind.
 
Yeah. Usually I give a price to repair and allow 2 hours to swap a diverter valve. I was there though to repair a toilet where the cistern had been tiledin so I had to remove all the tiles so I said I would be on hourly rate then they asked me to repair the leak as well.
 
I'm not going to buy Worcester Bosch ever again. Took getting out the WB repair men 8 times before they could eventually stop both isolation valves from leaking
 
I'm not going to buy Worcester Bosch ever again. Took getting out the WB repair men 8 times before they could eventually stop both isolation valves from leaking

And there was me thinking you were worcesters biggest fan. The leaks you had were probably caused by your constant "isolation tests" and when you left the boiler alone for 2 weeks it amazingly stopped leaking and yet your still going on about it. Life is too short.
 
I'm not going to buy Worcester Bosch ever again. Took getting out the WB repair men 8 times before they could eventually stop both isolation valves from leaking
That should have been a one hit
visit, their company accountant will be going nuts each visit costs £68.00 + vat. usually. The radicals mgt team ought to head for the Hills. WB are in melt down poor quality now which 600 engineers cannot keep on top off
centralheatking
 
That should have been a one hit
visit, their company accountant will be going nuts each visit costs £68.00 + vat. usually. The radicals mgt team ought to head for the Hills. WB are in melt down poor quality now which 600 engineers cannot keep on top off
centralheatking

I was speaking to a lad and he reckons the money for them is pants as well. (We are talking 5-6 years ago now) but he said it was 26k where as I always thought it was 30k plus 15 years ago unless it varies by area
 
Millsy 82 that's quite pathetic. There was me thinking I was supporting you with your comment and then you hit me with that totally unnecessary insult. So very nice of you. Its quite shocking how some plumbers feel threatened by a female customer who knows more than them. The leaks were coming from the top of the isolation valves not below it, and I did not cause them. If you had bothered to read my thread properly you would have known it was caused when the WB men first took the boiler apart. The 3 isolation tests I carried out showed up the leaks every time, and it was pooling with water under the right one and still he changed the heat exchanger. If that's called competence then that just shows what a bad plumber YOU are. Hey I only have an honours degree in mathematics and it doesn't take that to work out 7 extra visits to fix the same leak was a waste of my time and their money. And before anyone says leaks are really hard to find, I don't think they are if the boiler men just asked the customer not to use the boiler before the visit that day, all they have to do is shine a torch around the boiler when its cold and hey presto there is the leak or leaks. Its not rocket science!
 
@Cazza it may not be "rocket science" but it's not maths either, leaks aren't as simple as 2+2 as the answer isn't always that obvious. A pool of water under the right hand valve doesn't mean the right hand valve is leaking and neither does water coming from the top of the valve. Leaks in boilers can come from anywhere, water at location A can very easily originate from location B.

You had possibly a bad experience with Worcester, doesn't mean the engineer was incompetent and millsys comment doesn't make him incompetent either.
 
Let’s keep it civil folks. I think we can all agree that the Worcester Bosch boiler is no longer the beast it once was. However the inability to cure a leak on the first and second visit does not make the engineer incompetent it should highlight to the customer the sort of worsening quality build that we poor engineers have to deal with on a daily basis
 
Customers think they are the best thing since slice bread beg to differ as I have one in my own home and can confirm it's a bag of nails
 
What are you using to clean the fittings before you assemble? O-Rings rely on a really fine surface finish to seal. I keep some wet/dry P800 and P1200 in my tool bag for stuff like that. You need a matt finish generally for a good seal.

You can buy selection boxes of silicone/buna-n/Viton O-Rings from RS components and similar. You can also get tools that look a bit like a pen for identifying the material of the OEM part based on rigidity.
 
So its a real positive reaction to WB hey ! centralheatking
been bashing Wb for years they are ALMOST as bad as Ferroli
As bad as Ferroli? Had a job recently where one of their engineers couldn't fix their own boilers! He wants even allowed to drain the system.....
 
I had the same thing changing a diverter valve on an old Greenstar 28 CDI. Put it all back together and it leaked on the cold water inlet O ring seal. Second attempt at cleaning it sorted it though. Used a small angled wire brush and a small old screw driver which I bent at a 90 degree angle at the end. Works a treat at getting the lime scale out of the grove the O ring sits in. Took much longer than the 2 hours I quoted though and now the flow/return valves are both leaking since I touched them to isolate the boiler. Worcester now called in for a fixed price repair as it's for a big repair company. Takes hours to replace them.
 
Always do less hassle plus you can add some inhb

Now the sys going to be drained due to the valves so no different plus costing the customer more

Unless it’s a massive sys it takes 10 mins to fill
 
Always do less hassle plus you can add some inhb

Now the sys going to be drained due to the valves so no different plus costing the customer more

Unless it’s a massive sys it takes 10 mins to fill
Might do that from now on, specifically on old Worcesters as they seem to be the worst. Alway a gamble when turning the valve, so as you say best leave it alone.
 
Never touch boiler valves
We dont touch boiler valves ever...find an mt cock and get on with it. In fact there is a 24i
Wb in one of my houses. I will replace all the rads next week.
To get it ready for sale...never never go near the boiler on the wet side...Wb are a nightmare
centralheatking
 
ha WB. designed by morons. trickiest cases to get off, and as for replacing a prv!! back to the drawing board please

Honestly I don't know why when they have a new design asked 100 service and breakdown engineers in, not there own or Worcester accredited as they may be more biased and get their opinion. The Worcester rep agreed with a lot I said about working on 1 of the new boilers (can't remember which) so even if they know why do Worcester still build them? They should also buy a vaillant a baxi and a couple of others and see how easy some boilers are to work on compared to theirs.
 
Honestly I don't know why when they have a new design asked 100 service and breakdown engineers in, not there own or Worcester accredited as they may be more biased and get their opinion. The Worcester rep agreed with a lot I said about working on 1 of the new boilers (can't remember which) so even if they know why do Worcester still build them? They should also buy a vaillant a baxi and a couple of others and see how easy some boilers are to work on compared to theirs.
The old British Gas and its regional derivatives were lined up with Worcester. When all the fellas were made redundant they carried on with what they were familiar with..Worcester. Then they went up market with Bosch ...german hey, vortsprung technique and became WB ...they revilutionised selling methods appealing direct to customers on telly and papers. Quality suffered and so do customers and service engineers now. Avoid WB like the plague
centralheatking
 
Bosch are owned by a charitable trust set up by the family that founded them. They don’t have any shareholders to keep happy so seem to have spread into all sorts of fields from their original tool making.
 

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