The boiler (Worcester Greenstar 30CDi, LPG, non-combi) has started
sulking.

After a morning of luke-warm showers, I poked my nose into the understairs
cupboard it lives in, to find "EA" flashing on it. Reset, and it fired
right up. EA appears to be a bit of a general catch-all error code.

Next morning? Same again.
Next morning? Same again. Over the weekend, with looking at it more
often, I've had to reset it several times. It gets up to temp, we've got
a cylinder of nice hot water, and the heating's been fine between resets.

This morning, it won't fire up at all. EA. Reset. Gurgle. EA. Reset.
Gurgle.

From the flue vent outside, there's loudly audible gurgling.

We've been here 18mo, not had it serviced or looked at at all in that
time. The house was more-or-less empty for five years before, since the
extension it lives in was built, so it was clearly new at that time.

I'm phoning around local fixers today, but anybody got any bets?

Adrian wrote:
The boiler (Worcester Greenstar 30CDi, LPG, non-combi) has started
sulking.

After a morning of luke-warm showers, I poked my nose into the understairs
cupboard it lives in, to find "EA" flashing on it. Reset, and it fired
right up. EA appears to be a bit of a general catch-all error code.

Next morning? Same again.
Next morning? Same again. Over the weekend, with looking at it more
often, I've had to reset it several times. It gets up to temp, we've got
a cylinder of nice hot water, and the heating's been fine between resets.

This morning, it won't fire up at all. EA. Reset. Gurgle. EA. Reset.
Gurgle.

From the flue vent outside, there's loudly audible gurgling.

We've been here 18mo, not had it serviced or looked at at all in that
time. The house was more-or-less empty for five years before, since the
extension it lives in was built, so it was clearly new at that time.

I'm phoning around local fixers today, but anybody got any bets?

What's the system pressure like? When did you last top it up?

Tim

Tim+ wrote:
Adrian wrote:
The boiler (Worcester Greenstar 30CDi, LPG, non-combi) has started
sulking.

After a morning of luke-warm showers, I poked my nose into the understairs
cupboard it lives in, to find "EA" flashing on it. Reset, and it fired
right up. EA appears to be a bit of a general catch-all error code.

Next morning? Same again.
Next morning? Same again. Over the weekend, with looking at it more
often, I've had to reset it several times. It gets up to temp, we've got
a cylinder of nice hot water, and the heating's been fine between resets.

This morning, it won't fire up at all. EA. Reset. Gurgle. EA. Reset.
Gurgle.

From the flue vent outside, there's loudly audible gurgling.

We've been here 18mo, not had it serviced or looked at at all in that
time. The house was more-or-less empty for five years before, since the
extension it lives in was built, so it was clearly new at that time.

I'm phoning around local fixers today, but anybody got any bets?

What's the system pressure like? When did you last top it up?

Tim

Oops, I was presupposing it was a sealed system. If not, worth checking
that the header tank isn't empty.

Tim

On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 08:14:56 +0000, Tim+ wrote:

What's the system pressure like? When did you last top it up?

When it first threw an error, tail end of last week, it was about 0.5bar,
so I topped it up to 1.0 - and it's stayed there.

On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 08:16:20 +0000, Tim+ wrote:

What's the system pressure like? When did you last top it up?

Oops, I was presupposing it was a sealed system.

You presupposed right. I should have mentioned that. Pressurised hot
water cylinder, with solar HW. Wet underfloor heating. Does the exact
same whatever is on or off out of the heating (three zones/timers) or
water.

Condensate drain appears to be all internal. There's plastic heads
towards a wall and the back of the kitchen units, presumably joining the
sink drain.

In article ,
Adrian writes:
The boiler (Worcester Greenstar 30CDi, LPG, non-combi) has started
sulking.

After a morning of luke-warm showers, I poked my nose into the understairs
cupboard it lives in, to find "EA" flashing on it. Reset, and it fired
right up. EA appears to be a bit of a general catch-all error code.

Next morning? Same again.
Next morning? Same again. Over the weekend, with looking at it more
often, I've had to reset it several times. It gets up to temp, we've got
a cylinder of nice hot water, and the heating's been fine between resets.

This morning, it won't fire up at all. EA. Reset. Gurgle. EA. Reset.
Gurgle.

From the flue vent outside, there's loudly audible gurgling.

We've been here 18mo, not had it serviced or looked at at all in that
time. The house was more-or-less empty for five years before, since the
extension it lives in was built, so it was clearly new at that time.

I don't know this boiler, but...

My guess would be the condensate drain is blocked, and the heat
exchanger is filling up with condensate, to the point where it's
now blocked the pathway for the combustion gasses. If so, the
girgling (assuming that's a good description of the noise) will
coincide with the fan running (and be very audiable from the flue
as you say). It will eventually prevent the burner ignition, and
cause the burner to go out shortly after ignition.

Had this with my Keston a couple of times. The blockage was in
the bottom of the heat exchanger and I cleared it by disconnecting
the drain hose from it (nothing ran out) and poking a piece of
wire up it (several pints then came gushing out, so watch that it
isn't going to gush all over the circuit board, or a nice new
carpet). The Keston does have a detector for blocked condensate in
the U-trap (which would catch the classic frozen pipe case), but
as the blockage was before this, it couldn't see it. Don't know if
yours will detect this, so assume the blockage could be anywhere
in the condensate drain path. The condensate does wash debris out
of the heat exchanger in normal operation, and this could build up
in some places in the pipework, such as a U-trap. Clearing that is
part of routine servicing.

For the Keston (where it tends to block inside the heat exchanger),
I now avoid this problem by pouring a couple of pints of water in
the flue outlet a couple of times a year, which will wash out the
bottom of the heat exchanger before the dirt builds up enough to
block it. This may not be a good idea in other boiler designs.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 08:56:42 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

I don't know this boiler, but...

My guess would be the condensate drain is blocked, and the heat
exchanger is filling up with condensate, to the point where it's now
blocked the pathway for the combustion gasses. If so, the girgling
(assuming that's a good description of the noise) will coincide with the
fan running (and be very audiable from the flue as you say). It will
eventually prevent the burner ignition, and cause the burner to go out
shortly after ignition.

We have a winner!

Having a peer underneath, there's a flexible plastic tube going to a push-
in connection, tie-wrapped to the frame. That push-in is the start of the
hard plastic solvent-welded pipework going out towards gawd-knows-where.

Snip the tie-wrap, move it down as far as it will, and unplug the flexi.
After a few drips, a steady flow started and emptied mebbe a litre and a
half into a handy bucket. Blowing down the hard plastic was impossible at
first, but a couple of good hard puffs (ooh, matron!) suddenly released
whatever had blocked it, with an impressively tuba-like accompaniment.

And, reset, it fired straight up.

You, Sir, can award yourself a pint.

replying to Adrian, Homeowner Mike wrote:
Thanks! I saved a house call charge by reading this. Mine drained from the
bottom of a U-bend, I unscrewed the bottom and it was chock full of sludge.
Stuck my finger into it and all the water came gushing out! Yea, fixed!!
Thanks!

--
for full context, visit https://www.homeownershub.com/uk-diy...r-1003358-.htm

Ah the stuff of nightmares and fat burgs, which I understand one is now
available to view at a London museum.
Brian

--
----- -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Homeowner Mike" m wrote
in message ...
replying to Adrian, Homeowner Mike wrote:
Thanks! I saved a house call charge by reading this. Mine drained from
the
bottom of a U-bend, I unscrewed the bottom and it was chock full of
sludge. Stuck my finger into it and all the water came gushing out! Yea,
fixed!! Thanks!

--
for full context, visit
https://www.homeownershub.com/uk-diy...r-1003358-.htm