Boiler Advice

[TobiasRieper315]

Hello,

I moved into my flat May 2016. I inherited an IQE Simplicity 30 boiler which was installed on May 2014, that's 4 and a half years old now. It is still under warranty.

I have had it serviced every year since, the last one in June this year. It was fine up until recently when I decided to turn on the GSH and there was no heat at all from the radiators.

I have hot water, the rads have been bled, there are no error codes, the thermostat works and fires up the boiler, the boiler appears to work i.e. it goes through the process and fires up etc.

I have even completed diagnostics over the phone with SIME prior to them sending an engineer out. Everything was set correctly, but still no heat.

So, SIME engineer came out yesterday and he spent a good 3 hours on it but could not get it working. There was no heat coming from the connection pipe just underneath the actual boiler unit. That should be hot to the touch and it wasn't!

He came to the conclusion that the heat exchanger was blocked. He assumed that I or the boiler servicing didn't put any inhibitor in and it appeared he was trying to apportion the blame on me in the end finding very small bits of black (miniscule) in the water to justify his actions. My gut instinct was telling me that as he was challenged with the problem and wasn't enirely sure, his conclusion was 'heat exchanger' blocked.

He said that they were not allowed to clean or flush it as they could only do it if it was faulty ie leaking etc and it was not. So, without him actually doing cleaning/flushing it how can he really know!?

In the meanwhile, I have written a letter of complaint to SIME mentioning that a boiler of 4 years under warranty is not working and should look to resolve the problem my offering a replacement heat exchanger.

In the meanwhile, I have 3 appts pending in the next week for boiler installation quotes.

My dilemma is, not withstanding waiting a response from SIME, do I throw money at getting the heat exchanger looked at/flushed/clean etc which can cost a bit and hope that it fixes the problem, it may not, but should I look to do this first?

Then if it does fix the issue, how long will it last. I know these IQE boilers are crap in anycase.

Do I cut my losses and just fork out on a Valiant/Worcester boiler for £2k+?

Any help, advice would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks.

[moderator2]

Moved to central heating.

[gas4you]

Personally I would cut my losses and get rid of it.