Faulty Glowworm Flexicom 18SX - displaying f9 fault.

elephante2002

Hey guys - I'm based in Limerick and living in a rented house. Before Christmas we contacted the landlord to see if it was ok to get the Boiler serviced as we'd been living in the house about two years and it had never been serviced. The landlord said that wouldn't be a problem and that we could hire someone and get it taken out of the rent. A neighbour is a registered RGI plumber and we figured we'd give him a turn. He came and serviced the boiler and it cost about a hundred euro. At the same time he noticed that the outside vent was underneath a window and that it wasn't up to code so he had to note it on the form that goes back to RGI. He maintained that the boiler needed to be moved up about two feet to meet the standards - so we contacted the landlord again and he said to go ahead and get it moved and take it out of the rent again. When we asked the plumber how much it would cost, he said about two hundred euro. They came to move the boiler, spent a full day from 8.30am til after 7 that evening to move it and when I asked for the invoice, it was now costing 400 euro. Fine. Boiler was moved and was now up to code.
However, since it has been moved, we've been having loads of difficulty. At first it was working and every now and again it would just cut off and display the f9 fault code, which, according to the manual relates to a faulty pressure sensor. We'd just reset it and it would work away again for a while and then start faulting again. Then all over a sudden the instrument panel broke and fell into the boiler - another 200 quid. Now it's gotten to the stage where it just won't turn on at all. This time we got a family friend who's also RGI registered to come look at it - he was stumped. He didn't think it was the water pressure sensor at all as at the time, the water pressure was 1.8 bar and apparently it's supposed to work at 0.5bar. While that same guy was checking it out, one of the original guys turned up and he also reckoned it wasn't the pressure sensor. They were able to get it to light up by putting more water into it by the valve. However then about an hour later it went back to the fault. So for the last while we've been managing with letting more water into the pump and it would start up.
At this stage we've put the cost of a new boiler into it and it's still not working. The original guy has now recommended a flush of the whole system (which I believe they should have done when the boiler was moved in the first place) which will cost another couple of hundred quid. The family friend reckons that the original guys are just hunting for cash from us. I don't know who to believe at this stage and I was hoping someone here might be able to shed some light on the problem!

Please help!

Dtp1979

elephante2002 wrote: »

Hey guys - I'm based in Limerick and living in a rented house. Before Christmas we contacted the landlord to see if it was ok to get the Boiler serviced as we'd been living in the house about two years and it had never been serviced. The landlord said that wouldn't be a problem and that we could hire someone and get it taken out of the rent. A neighbour is a registered RGI plumber and we figured we'd give him a turn. He came and serviced the boiler and it cost about a hundred euro. At the same time he noticed that the outside vent was underneath a window and that it wasn't up to code so he had to note it on the form that goes back to RGI. He maintained that the boiler needed to be moved up about two feet to meet the standards - so we contacted the landlord again and he said to go ahead and get it moved and take it out of the rent again. When we asked the plumber how much it would cost, he said about two hundred euro. They came to move the boiler, spent a full day from 8.30am til after 7 that evening to move it and when I asked for the invoice, it was now costing 400 euro. Fine. Boiler was moved and was now up to code.
However, since it has been moved, we've been having loads of difficulty. At first it was working and every now and again it would just cut off and display the f9 fault code, which, according to the manual relates to a faulty pressure sensor. We'd just reset it and it would work away again for a while and then start faulting again. Then all over a sudden the instrument panel broke and fell into the boiler - another 200 quid. Now it's gotten to the stage where it just won't turn on at all. This time we got a family friend who's also RGI registered to come look at it - he was stumped. He didn't think it was the water pressure sensor at all as at the time, the water pressure was 1.8 bar and apparently it's supposed to work at 0.5bar. While that same guy was checking it out, one of the original guys turned up and he also reckoned it wasn't the pressure sensor. They were able to get it to light up by putting more water into it by the valve. However then about an hour later it went back to the fault. So for the last while we've been managing with letting more water into the pump and it would start up.
At this stage we've put the cost of a new boiler into it and it's still not working. The original guy has now recommended a flush of the whole system (which I believe they should have done when the boiler was moved in the first place) which will cost another couple of hundred quid. The family friend reckons that the original guys are just hunting for cash from us. I don't know who to believe at this stage and I was hoping someone here might be able to shed some light on the problem!

Please help!

There's no reason the original guy should have flushed the system if just moving the boiler, unless the system needed to be flushed and he gave you a price. A proper powerflush should be around 450 so whichever guy quoted you a couple of hundred is either working for free or stealing from you.
Now, I don't know if the system needs to be flushed or not, maybe if there's dirt in water it coujd have affected the pressure switch when refilling the system are draining to move. Do your rads heat as hot on the bottom as on the top?

elephante2002

Thanks Dpt1979 for your response! One of them did mention the thing about having the rads hot on top and bottom with regards the flush so we checked and they all seem relatively evenly heated. I definitely wouldn't say they were much colder on the bottom at all at all. They seem fine to me. I'm not exactly well versed in heating and plumbing so sorry if it seems confusing!
Another thing that has me wondering about the original guys that did the work, they'd quote such a price for a part and then fit it and then when it came to the receipt the part would have been three times more expensive than the the original quote. I've actually ended up finding out the prices of the parts myself cause I thought there was something fishy going on.

Dtp1979

elephante2002 wrote: »

Thanks Dpt1979 for your response! One of them did mention the thing about having the rads hot on top and bottom with regards the flush so we checked and they all seem relatively evenly heated. I definitely wouldn't say they were much colder on the bottom at all at all. They seem fine to me. I'm not exactly well versed in heating and plumbing so sorry if it seems confusing!
Another thing that has me wondering about the original guys that did the work, they'd quote such a price for a part and then fit it and then when it came to the receipt the part would have been three times more expensive than the the original quote. I've actually ended up finding out the prices of the parts myself cause I thought there was something fishy going on.

Yes they shouldn't be doing that. If the job is turning out to be more expensive than they originally thought then it should've been discussed with you before it went any further

K.Flyer

The fexicom f9 is usually a faulty pressure sensor unit, especially if its showing that you have sufficient pressure in the system.
I have changed a few of them and its been the end of the problem.
Unfortunately it's a common fault on those boilers.
Call your friendly local RGI and get him to change it.
If the system water is very dirty its possible for the problem to re-occur at some time in the future.