Last week, I had a problem with 3 year old Vaillant EcoMax Pro 18E. It
was dripping water from the bottom of the casing. It turns out the
cause was related to the float in the condensate tank. Because of poor
design, the tank and associated siphoning equipment is prone to
malfunctioning because it gets gunged up and sticks, causing the
condensate to back up and spill over into the casing. It then drips
out the bottom of the casing.

The obvious way to treat this problem is to have someone come and
inspect then clean up all the components and put them back together
again. This of course leads to nice repeat business which the
customer pays for.

It transpires that there is a modified design available as a free
service exchange but unless you know about it and demand it, then its
not likely that any non-Vaillant engineer will fit it - particularly
if its a free lancer you have selected yourself or a sub-contractor
to a sub-contractor that the manufacturer might provide.

But then that's another story that brings to mind words like cowboys,
Rogue Traders and BBC Watchdog.

In my case the cowboy's first question was...'Is this a contact job or
a one off? When you mention you have a drip problem then cowboy will
say......' ' Oh, its a repair job then and parts will be extra. I
havnt got a big stock of parts in the van so I will have to go and get
them' '.

I wasnt going to stand for this nonesense so told him where to get
off. HWMBO was most impressed.

Incidentally its the same condensate tank arrangement that is fitted
to Glowworm 18 Hxi boilers.

Good luck!