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Member since:06.07.2003
Reviews:24
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I had no choice as to which boiler was fitted in my house. Or put another way, I didn't seek a choice at the time. It was a new build house and the boiler that was fitted looked fine to my untrained eye. If you've read my op on Miller Homes, you'll no doubt expect me to say it doesn't surprise me that they fitted a Potterton Suprima. And it doesn't.
Bear with me, though - I'm going to tell you our tale of woe, and if you haven't wandered off in a fit of boredom, it probably means you have a similar boiler and are having similar problems to us. Either that, or you're a glutton for punishment...
To be precise, our exact model is the Suprima 50L. It was after about a year in the house that we left my mother-in-law in charge for the weekend, and stayed with friends. On the Saturday evening, we got a call from her to say that the boiler had stopped working and the house was freezing. My wife told her to press the reset switch and everything went back to normal. For about another 6 months.
Ever since then (about 20 months ago) the boiler has become increasingly annoying. Annoying because it now refuses to stay on for longer than about 2-3 hours at a time, and
often won't go on despite trying 50+ times to reset it.
We've known for a while now that the Potterton Suprima is famed for its failing PCBs (printed circuit boards, for the non-electricians among us). When we had it serviced last September, the nice man explained that the reason we have to reset it all the time is because of a faulty circuit board. He explained it'd be about £250 if we wanted it fixed then, but at the time it was still bearable. Just.
Eventually, desperation set in. Although we've rode out the worst of the winter with the infuriating thing, it's the fact that my wife has to get up at about 5.30am EVERY weekday to reset it for her morning shower. And every day when we get home from work, the house is cold. So, last night I put 'Potterton Suprima Circuit Board' into Google, found a Q&A forum and discovered the following.
Potterton apparently phased out lead from their solder some time ago, for Health & Safety reasons. As a result though, with too high a proportion of tin in the solder, the joints are brittle. Consequently, with the constant vibration of the boiler firing up and turning off, the solder joints eventually crack, leaving dry joints all over the circuit board! THAT'S why the bloody thing refuses to work, or indeed conform to any rhyme or reason!
I should point out, too, that forking out £250 or so on a new PCB would only lead to the same problems within a couple of years or so.
After leaving a post on the forum last night, querying how difficult a task it would be to resolder these joints (since I'm not THAT experienced a solderer, and am wary of tinkering with gas appliances), I got a response today, with idiot-proof instructions telling me how to remove the PCB, and how to re-assemble it again after re-soldering the cracked joints. I've put a couple of photos in with this review to show exactly how they look, and my rather-amateurish soldering job that has made it work again.
In a nutshell, while Potterton disavow any liability for the product (or indeed any responsibility whatsoever for anything - see other ops for more detail), I have now fixed the boiler and it works like a dream! My wife thinks I'm a hero, and told me expressly to convey to the nice man who helped me that HE is also a hero!
So, I've saved myself £230 approx (soldering iron, solder and magnifying glass came to £19.97). I'm not going to go into a lot of detail showing how to fix the boiler, because, at the end of the day, it IS still an electrical and a gas appliance, and I'd hate to be responsible for causing any injury (or worse) to anyone.
My advice, if you have a Potterton boiler of any description, would be to get yourself onto an annual maintenance contract as soon as is physically possible. That's what we were trying to do when we last had the boiler serviced, but due to the incompetence of the maintenance company, they took so long to sort it out that they wanted to service the boiler again. By that point, we simply couldn't have got away with denying any knowledge of the fault. £12 or so a month will be cheaper than forking out for a new PCB every couple of years, and you'll effectively get your boiler serviced once a year for free.
If you ARE confident enough to fix the boiler yourself, just do what I did and look it up on Google. I think if you put 'Potterton Suprima lockout problem' into Google, you'll get a very small number of hits, one of which will be entitled 'Questions & Answers'. But don't do anything silly, and do get qualified help if you're at all unsure.
Other than the above, which is obviously my main reason for writing this op, the boiler is adequate for our needs when it's working. I might suggest it's a little underpowered for a 4 bedroom house, but it's OK.
[UPDATE 25/07/05]
After a few weeks of working OK, the boiler started to play up again. Same problem, requiring to be reset a few times a day, then getting steadily worse. Further communication with the online forums - and the guy who gave me the advice on soldering in the first place - has turned up a comment from a boiler service engineer, who said that if it IS only the solder, we've been lucky, as some of the components have been known to be dodgy too.
I've also discovered that Potterton PCBs can sometimes be found on eBay for £70-90, but do be very careful to get the correct part number if you go down this route (part no. is printed on the PCB, and almost invariably quoted on the eBay description when they come up for sale).
We've discovered a new workaround now. If you turn the boiler off for a while (1/2 an hour or more minimum), then turn it back on, it seems to fire up 90+% of the time, first time. We're just getting into the habit of turning it off before we go to bed now. Won't be suitable in winter, though!
So, our new strategy is to use the turn-off method until we find a PCB for sale on eBay, then buy that, install it, and then get onto an annual maintenance contract.
In short, while most of the advice above stands about the problems, and part of the possible solution, I felt it was important to give anyone in this situation the full picture. And the picture is still 'Get onto a maintenance contract ASAP!'
Pictures of Potterton Suprima
A 'classic' cracked joint'
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Yeah a common fault that Potterton "claimed" to fix, best to get a recondition PCD.
orlando 22.04.2005 00:31
I have a glow-worm, but I read it all (well, nearly all, lol) anyway!
Minha 16.04.2005 11:39
That was SO useful. Our boiler isn't Potterton - but we have had EXACTLY the same problem - so much so that we left it last time and have done without central heating! We do have gas fires as well - and a heated shower - etc. Just shows it's not just one firm though. Hazel xx
Apr 11th, 2005
very helpful by (100%):
