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Discuss Worcester GreenStar 15Ri - fails with blue flashing light in the Central Heating Forum area at PlumbersForums.net

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Condensing boiler installed by local Gas Safe plumber in 2014, not combi. Failed a couple of weeks ago with flashing blue light which googling suggests means no gas, blocked flue or blocked condensate pipe. There is gas, the flue is clear, and the condensate pipe goes into the under-sink waste pipe. We have disconnected the pipe right back to under the boiler and let it drip in a bucket, so it's not that.

I have had the plumber back but he's pretty much given up. He swapped out the pump, but that didn't help. He wonders about the 2 motorised valves in the airing cupboard, around the pump, but doesn't want to charge me £300 knowing that it might make no difference.

I could get Worcester Bosch to take a look for £300, but they might find no fault with the boiler, and walk away.

When the boiler fails and I want to try to get it going again, I rotate the right hand thermostat knob anticlockwise to "RESET" for a few seconds, and then clockwise to about 1 o'clock - it makes some noises for about a minute, then usually fails back to the flashing blue light.

The workaround: I have figured out a way of making it work - if the room thermostat / timer schedule is calling for heat, and I boost the hot water, and then do a RESET, it fires and happily works for the rest of the day.

On Saturday, I set the HW schedule 15 minutes ahead of CH, and it all worked happily for the rest of the day.
On Sunday, the same it didn't work, and I had to do my manual routine to get it to work - which it did for the rest of the day.
Middle of the day today, after I had manually started CH and HW briefly first thing with a RESET, I boosted HW when the CH was not calling for heat (scheduled OFF), and it fired up fine.
If I was being light-hearted, I would just say that it really doesn't like getting up in the morning, like my teenagers.

Does any of that make sense to anyone? The boiler doesn't seem to be broken as it's functional. But it's much happier when CH and HW are required at the same time.
Could it have a dodgy sensor?
Could it be because CH and HW at the same time makes the motorised valves do something which impacts the boiler (in a good way) but when they are not on together, the boiler fails? Some kind of back pressure which is tripping a sensor cutoff?
Could a Worcester engineer work out the cause because there is a diagnostic port that gives more detail than the unhelpful flashing blue light?
Driving me nuts. Trying to avoid spending £600 and being no further forward. Thanks in advance.
 
There is no diagnostics port on that boiler. You need to employ an engineer that can actually fault find as well as test at a component level rather than guess, a WB approved engineer /fixed cost repair should do that.
 
Thanks Gmartine.
I know this isn't the answer, but the problem seems to have gone away - it now just works when required without manual intervention. Intermittent problems...

Makes you wonder whether it is ambient temperature related, since the failure was always first thing in the morning but once I'd done the workaround, it was always fine for the rest of the day. And now, the weather is warmer again. If I called an engineer now, there is no actual fault to see/fix, and as you point out, no diagnostic port to report historic faults.

If it fails again, I need to find a WB approved independent in Bristol then. WB themselves tell me that their engineers won't touch anything other than the actual boiler. And the WB appointment booker told me it does have diagnostics - when I asked whether the engineer could plug in a laptop, she said Yes!

Any local suggestions / volunteers? A quick search gave a site which the forum seems to prevent me from posting, but I am not mad about just picking from Google anyway
 
I see that boiler does have a code plug, has the boiler/ system been serviced/maintained?

Tbh any decent engineer should be able to work through a flow chart and fault find, it needn't be a WB approved one.
 
My installer has serviced it but seems to have given up on me because he does not know what the root cause is and doesn't want to charge me unnecessarily. He is a respected local gas safe plumber who always recommends WB and has one himself. It sounds as though he doesn't know what the code plug does though... Is it USB or RS232 and connects to a laptop?
 
Not offended. I understand your frustration but we have to tread carefully for your own safety in case you might as lot's of people try.

There is some fault finding guidance in the installation and service instructions that you can pull off the WB website.
 

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