RED365 Compact 18 Wood Pellet Boiler ISSUES - MCZ / RED365

Robsmith88

Hi,
I'm hoping a few people on here can help me as I took the plunge and had a wood pellet boiler installed last year and it's been nothing but trouble since.

In May 2013 I had a company install an MCZ RED365 Compact 18 wood pellet boiler and it has been a nightmare with LOADS of issues. since installation I have had the installers back out about 20 times to fix all manner of issues.

The main issue is that it keeps tripping the electrics (MCB) in the boiler room but am guessing that is caused as a knock on effect from some of the other issues.

- 3 x faulty igniters
- 1 x faulty turbulator
- 3 x faulty motherboards
- leaks due to the boiler not having the right UK connections
- many blown fuses
- overheating issues
- constantly tripping the electrics

In January, after being without heating and hot water for over 2 months I had them rip it out and replace it for a new one (the same model) and 4 weeks later, that has just tripped the electrics, blown fuses and caused other issues and I am now without heating and hot water AGAIN !!!

has anyone else had similar experiences? I just have no idea what to do now other than to instruct the installers to take it out and refund me in full.

has anyone else got a RED 365 Compact 18 or Compact 24 boiler with issues?

i'd love to hear from you to share your experience :-)

thanks

Rob

biomass_installer

Rob

Sorry to hear you have problems, but do not blame them all on the installers, they probably recomended the boiler to you in good faith, as a good economic boiler.

What a mistake that has been, we have installed MCZ stoves for several years, and had good results and when the RED Compact boiler came on the market through MCZ we thought that this was an ideal boiler for the utility room or garage.

We fitted our first about 18 months ago and for a while all seemed to go well and carried on fitting them. Then after a couple of months igniters started to fail, after a lot of hassle MCZ sent an egineer to Scotland to investigate the issue for another company and thought that the problem lay in the grid voltage being higher in the UK than Italy, so they supplied a different igniter, but these still fail in anything from a matter of months. We also have had problems of tripping electrics.

Then we had problem with the turbulators falling out and corroding. MCZ (RED) admitted that there was a problem with these and changed them to stainless steel, but the support bars are still mild steel so these corrode now and the Turbulators still fall out.

We have not had any motherboards fail so do not understand that, but one thing we have found is that when the igniter fails it blows a little fuse on the mother board so I wonder if that was the problem.

Overheating issues are probably down to an installation error, there must be a way to dump heat into the radiators or a heat leak radiator when the programmer is not asking for heat, as with all biomass boilers they do not shut down instantly and the normal UK method of a bi pass valve does not work.

Obviously some time ago we decided to stop fitting Compacts though we still fit MCZ stoves which have proved to be very reliable. We have complained to MCZ, but they seem reluctant to do anything. We have also made a compaint to the body that approves the product for use in the UK known as Gemserv stating that in our opinion until these problems are sorted out that the approval should be suspended.

Obvioulsy I can not name our company as this is likely to go legal, but I know of other companies accross the UK having similar issues. We are based in England, but the company in Scotland I mentioned went under as a result of the problems and I have heard of a company in North Wales that also installs them having similar problems

Stick with the boiler if you can, but put pressue on the importers - Specflue and also complain to both The Microgeneration Certification Body and the Renewable Energy Association the latter have a mediation service (Sorry you will have to search for the links as I can't put them here as the forum wont let me). Please dont blame the poor installers but we all must put as much pressure as we can to get the manufacturers and importers to sort this out.

Good luck, bear with it as it is basically a really good boiler with a few serious problems. Any decent manufacturer and importer would do as a car manufacturer and develop fixes to the problems and retro fit to all installed boilers without delay, rather that trying to deny there is a problem.

Robsmith88

As I mentioned on another forum where you posted, the manufacturers sent an electrician to my house a week or so ago and found that the boiler had been wired up incorrectly by the installer and a 230v live from the timer/programmer in the house had been connected to low voltage live on the boiler motherboard - so it seems on the face of it that the installer has caused the majority of my issues. time will tell whether this does fix things but I have also spoken to other people online that had the same issue. (i did mention the potential programmer issue to the installer prior to the manufacturers finding it out for themselves...)

I don't solely blame the installers though as I do understand that the MCZ/RED365 boilers do have some inherrant problems that still need to be resolved for use in the UK.

When I looked around for an installer, I didn't choose the cheapest as I wanted a company with good reputation and that would still be around to support me.. during my 2-3 months of choosing the right product and installer a couple of 'renewable energy' companies went bust. I guess this is due to the sudden demand and marketplace for renewable energy products and government incentives such as the RHI & RHPP that mean all manner of companies suddenly start offering these products with VERY little experience of how to install them and VERY little knowledge of the product.

Whilst you say 'don't be too hard on the installer' At the end of the day, I put my faith into an installer to recommend me a good product and to offer a good service to me. I have been extremely patient with them (nearly a year of issues now) as I understand new technologies will have teething issues - however at the end of the day, it is the installer that has failed me on most accounts:

• recommending a good product? --- time will tell but the indication is that the installer did not recommend me a good product.
• carrying out a good installation? --- on the whole I am very happy with the installation, it is a neat and tidy job, however it would appear the lack of knowledge from the installer has led to most of my issues.
• offering good support? --- To be fair to the installer, when I have had issues they have responded quickly
• good customer service? --- leaving me without a functioning boiler for the best part of 2 months in winter whilst arguing 'who was to blame' was not good and caused my family and I a lot of issues and a lot of stress. during this time my 2 year old daughter was ill and my wife had a misscarriage... This was going to carry on for another month too and it was only when I made official complaints on Christmas eve that they fitted a new boiler within 2 weeks. now that is VERY bad practice.

I may be mad, but the fact this installer responds to support calls very quickly still makes me think they are a good and reputable company but there is no doubt that my situation has been handled VERY badly.

I'm not namimg and shaming them on this forum or any of the other forums where I am discussing this for obvious reasons and I am still waiting to hear their final verdict on the issues i've experienced over the last year..

I'm also not on here to slate the manufacturer or installer - I really wanted to help the installer and myself to get to the bottom of the issues and find other users experiences.

my next mission is to work out hwo to get the boiler running at optimum efficiency as at the moment i'm using 3 bags of pellets a day !!

Robsmith88

the boiler is still currently running

Does anyone have any info on the best way to set the MCZ RED365 Compact 18 up so that it runs at optimum efficiency? is it solely down to the pellet recipe?

Our house was specced at 14KWh heating + hot water usage for 3 people - we have cavity and loft insulation etc so the house is fairly efficient apart from the lounge, hall and dining room on the ground floor which have no insulation under the loor (beneath the floor boards it is just earth). the heating is set to come on at 5:30am and goes off at midday - it then comes on again at 3:00pm and runs until 9:00pm. we have the house thermostat set between 18 and 22 degrees depending if we are in or not.. I've tried having the heating running on lower all day and having it coming on and off throughout the day but that doesn't seem to change consumption.

we're currently using 3 bags of pellets a day (EN+ good quality ones - Verdo) but that seems excessive as is costing £8.40 a day - at that rate i'll be using nearly a ton a month.

any ideas what I can try or if there are any companies that will come and set these up to best efficiency?

Robwiz

Your Verdo pellets have 4.8 kW/kg, so if your stove was burning flat out for 12.5 hours per day it would use 36.5 kg per day. I would be concerned as your boiler appears to be running at 82% capacity and it's a very mild winter.

The usual suggestions for central heating economy apply: turn your thermostat down – my family has been 'educated' to survive at 20.5º during the evening and 19.5º during the day. Also, try 16º as your setback temperature when the house is empty.

I would say that insulating under the ground floor boards is a no-brainer as your heat will be leaking out the bottom of your house. Have you sealed the gaps between the boards and at the skirtings?

Do you have TRVs on bedroom radiators? Check the temperatures in each of your rooms when the heating is running and adjust the valves back to a sensible, comfortable level? We find 16º upstairs is perfectly acceptable as it's warm enough to take the chill off the room.

What does the temperature fall to between midday and 3 pm? The temperature drop over time would give an idea of the rate of heat loss from your house.

[Deleted User]

op, your stove consumption of 3 bags of verdo a day seems fair. We have a 4 bed detached eco house with the highest insulation and solar gain. At the moment we run our mcz hydro 15 on just less than one bag a day and winter 2010 it was actually one bag a day. We use just slightly over a tonne in one year as we also have solar panels for hot water.

biomass_installer

I am glad that you got to the bottom of the blown mother boards, yes 240 volts through a volt free conection will take out the mother board and trip the electrics. I am glad the installers responded to your issues quickly and professionally
I am afraid that I am convinced that you will have ongoing problems with the igniters and turbulators, these will I am afraid fail, it is only a matter of time, so be prepared.
We have had ongoing problems with these and the issue is still not resolved.
Good luck

kernewek

We have just had a MCZ Red Compact 18 installed. 3 bedroom detached house with garage conversion to make a 4th bedroom/study and just had all our old storage heaters ripped out and and a wet heating system installed with new water tank.
Our house is an early 90s build with cavity wall and loft insulation with some new and some older windows.
From commissioning we have heated the house from stone cold (unoccupied for 2 weeks while the wet heating system was put in.) heated the water a few times, heated an evening and a morning. We have used around 1.3 bags of pellets in doing this. ( 24 hours) So far I am very impressed. Our installer was recommended by our plumber and have heard very good things from several other people and so far my pellet usage is much better than I was expecting as the boiler has been working quite hard. I'm no expert by any means but from a layman's point of view their work looks very good. A number of people we know have had the MCZ Red range and have had no problems though admittedly all within the last 24 months or so. That is except for my brother who had a Red Compact 35 put in. Unfortunately in his case the installer was a complete cowboy who, we have learnt, has since been struck off the MCS register. His flu was not installed to building regs and the boiler was going through a ridiculous amount of pellets and had not been commissioned or configured properly. Our installer had a look and recommended that it was completely ripped out and re-installed such was the poor quality of the work.
With regard to our system, only time will tell, but I will keep you updated.

frugal90

we have installed a Klover Diva Mid and can't fault it . The installer was great and the product is great -really happy

Robsmith88

FYI - latest update - my last contact with the installer 'New World Solar Installations' was back in April when they still denied they had wired up the boiler original boiler correctly... even though it was proven adn the same faults on the second boiler, they said they would need to arbitrate this to find who was liable for the cost of the new boiler !! disgraceful behavour !!

New World Solar went into Liquidation about 4 weeks ago so i'm left high and dry.. I'm trying to contact MCS who said that installers have to offer a 2 year installation guarantee as well as the manufacturers warranty... so i am hoping that MCS have something (insurance/an agreement with another installer) in place to cover me for the next 12 months... any thoughts on this?

Also the same 2 directors from the failed New World Solar have now set up New World Energy in Cheltenham but as a new entity they would have no obligations to their previous companies customers.. so they'll just leave a wake of bad installations behind them...

lostinrates

Robsmith,

I am afraid we found the MCS and the nic who every whatsits toothless when Our installer let us down with a wood pellet boiler.

On the plus side, we won a summer are judgement against them at court and now have functioning daikon air source heat pumps which are AMAZINGLY good.