RED365 Compact 18 Wood Pellet Boiler ISSUES - MCZ / RED365

RickMoney

kernewek wrote: »

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.

Any chance you could send me the details on your installer? I might be interested in one of these and want to ensure the installer is good.

Cheers

arniejrim

I've had a MCZ Red Compact 24 for about 18 months now and have to say it's not very reliable. I get through around 3 1/2 - 4 tonnes of pellets a year for a 3 bed detached house. I have a 300 litre buffer tank which I would recommend as it helps on pellet consumption.

The biggest problem I have is I keep getting a A01 alarm. The amount of times i've come home to a cold house to find the pellets haven't ignited is crazy.

I found an article saying I should change the fan rpm in the technical menu which is helpful - but does anyone know the password to get to the technical menu so I can change the setting?

Having just forked out £300 for a service I don't want to call someone out to charge me for something I can do myself!

I had a igniter go in the 1st nine months which was replaced under warranty too.

Tightjock

I also have a Red compact 24 installed with a buffer tank. Unfortunately I have also suffered numerous igniter faults since installed and two brazier fails due to corrosion. After getting beyond the voltage issue I believe the igniter is still failing due to corrosion (as is the brazier) and I have now set my boiler up to ensure it remains above 45 degrees to avoid condensation developing. So far so good and the brazier even started to look less distressed!

Regarding the a01 alarm. I was also getting this frequently but it coincided with the flue being swept and I found there to be excessive flue ash in the lower tray. After clearing I have not had a problem.

The technical menu password is a9 but be very careful with what you do as you can accidentally alter a setting very easily and cause no end of probs.

Silent_Dancer

Do not change the fan speed. This is only something a trained technician should do.

smokinjoe21

check out the 't boiler off' setting as I found a post for correction of factory setting, which may be reason for all the A02 flame failure. I hope so cos mine does it all the time:(


Here follows text copied from post:


Any Compact boiler supplied during 2013 and early 2014 should be checked during commissioning to ensure that certain technical parameters are correctly set. Any boilers supplied with software Versions 7 to 9 may have a parameter that determines the smoke temperature that the boiler considers it is switched off incorrectly set.
To check and correct this parameter, proceed as follows:

• From Settings Menu, select Technical Menu
• Enter relevent password
• Select Parameters option
• Scroll through to Parameter 11 (T Boiler On): Ths should be set to 45 degrees
• Scroll through to Parameter 18 (T Boiler off): This may be set to 60 degrees which is INCORRECT. This paramter must be adjusted to 42 degrees - select the parameter then using +- keys reduce value to 42 and save.
• Exit menu

Background

MCZ changed the parameter of the Compact range at which the boiler considers it is switched off at Software V.7 release. The value relates to the observed smoke temperature at the flue fan housing, after it has exited the boiler heat exchanger. Previously, the value was 42 degrees but this was raised to 60 degrees. The intention was that this higher 'off' temperature would ensure that the boiler switched off more rapidly after a shutdown/cooldown phase, and also come back up to temperature more quickly after ignition. However the result of this was increased intstances of A02 combustion failure alarms. This usually occurs when the boiler commences reignition shortly after having shutdown (within 5-10 minutes). Because the boiler is still relatively warm under these conditions, the boiler is already above the boiler 'on' temperature and although there is a 'hot start' logic in the software, ignition is not allowed to continue for long enough for combustion to establish (maximum of 2 mins - possibly only about 5 seconds): The boiler considers it is already alight and attempts to modulate into normal full power. Pellet delivery and fan speed goes to maximum, the brazier is swamped and no combustion establishes; the boiler then throws up a combustion failure alarm once the flue gas temp fall below 42 degrees.
Software version 8-9 should have an ammendment which reverts Parameter 18 (T Boiler off) to 42 degrees, but if it has not, the parameter shold be altered as descrived above.
From Software V.10, released February 2014, the 'Hot Restart' logic in the boilers was modified to overcome this issue.

Now, if when ignition phase commences the observed smoke temp is over the value of T Stove On (45 degrees), the observed temperature is recorded, then the igniter remains on (fan/pellet values also remaining at 'Load Wood' settings) until the observed smoke temp reaches 5 degrees above the recorded value at the start of ignition. At this point, the boiler concludes ignition is complete, the stove is alight and modulates to full power/normal running.