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ATAG boilers

Does what it says on the tin
jackdaww
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ATAG boilers

#459872

Postby jackdaww » November 21st, 2021, 4:52 pm

,

my brother has one of these - IR18 open vent gas - about 5 yrs old.

often getting error codes 151 and 164 .

DAK if ATAG boilers are any good please ?

:?:

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Re: ATAG boilers

#459890

Postby BullDog » November 21st, 2021, 6:07 pm

Excellent devices.

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Re: ATAG boilers

#459907

Postby Mike4 » November 21st, 2021, 8:17 pm

jackdaww wrote:,

my brother has one of these - IR18 open vent gas - about 5 yrs old.

often getting error codes 151 and 164 .

DAK if ATAG boilers are any good please ?

:?:


Atag are well regarded by those who fit them, but that probably applies to any boiler.

They are rare as hen's teeth (I've never seen one in the wild) and come with remarkably long guarantees - up to 14 years is commonly mentioned provided serviced annually by an Atag-approved technician so might be worth contacting Atag directly and asking about a guarantee visit.

151 seems to be a fan speed error. Most discussions of Atag failures seem to revolve around 151 error code.

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Re: ATAG boilers

#459946

Postby swill453 » November 21st, 2021, 11:33 pm

I've got an ATAG condenser combi boiler about 3 years old. About 18 months ago I got the 151 fan error code about 3 times in so many months. Resetting it cleared the error. At the annual service the boiler man said he couldn't find a problem. The error hasn't reoccurred in the last year.

Don't know if that helps...

Scott.

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Re: ATAG boilers

#459964

Postby Mike4 » November 22nd, 2021, 7:00 am

swill453 wrote:I've got an ATAG condenser combi boiler about 3 years old. About 18 months ago I got the 151 fan error code about 3 times in so many months. Resetting it cleared the error. At the annual service the boiler man said he couldn't find a problem. The error hasn't reoccurred in the last year.

Don't know if that helps...

Scott.


Was it an Atag appointed service agent familiar with the boiler who serviced it? Or some random gas bod out of the phone book?

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Re: ATAG boilers

#459979

Postby Mike4 » November 22nd, 2021, 8:13 am

Looking into this a bit more, most Atags (which one is this, exactly?) have a flow switch which looks for flow of water through the heat exchanger during the ignition sequence, and if there is not enough, or any flow, the flow switch interrupts the fan leading to a fan speed error fault code. It's a moot point whether displaying a fan speed error when its a water flow error is good boiler design, or not!

So it might not be a boiler fault at all, but the boiler detecting insufficient water flow. Point is though, turning the pump speed up a notch has been know to fix this intermittent 151 error. Also, check if thermostatic rad valves have been fitted and if yes, make sure there is a system bypass and/or at least one rad without a TRV and that rad is turned ON.

Edit to add:
Oops just noticed the OP says the model is an iR18. This version has an external pump and a 22mm automatic bypass is mandatory according to the manual. Check it has one.

Edit again to add more:
The error 164 mentioned is not in the manual but there is a 154. Could it have been that instead? If so, the manual says "154 Flow increases to fast ∆T to large, return > flow" so again, this is pointing towards a pump problem rather than a boiler fault. I'm imagining they mean "too large" rather than "to large", which actually suggests an intermittently sticking pump.

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Re: ATAG boilers

#459985

Postby swill453 » November 22nd, 2021, 8:40 am

Mike4 wrote:
swill453 wrote:I've got an ATAG condenser combi boiler about 3 years old. About 18 months ago I got the 151 fan error code about 3 times in so many months. Resetting it cleared the error. At the annual service the boiler man said he couldn't find a problem. The error hasn't reoccurred in the last year.

Don't know if that helps...

Was it an Atag appointed service agent familiar with the boiler who serviced it? Or some random gas bod out of the phone book?

The former. He installed it in the first place.

Scott.

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Re: ATAG boilers

#460015

Postby jackdaww » November 22nd, 2021, 9:59 am

.

many thanks .

i forgot to say also that the pump runs continuously , even when the boiler is not running .

our instruction book does have error code 164 - flow switch not closed at heat demand (system pump not running ) .

:)

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Re: ATAG boilers

#460032

Postby 88V8 » November 22nd, 2021, 10:36 am

jackdaww wrote:.i forgot to say also that the pump runs continuously , even when the boiler is not running .

Why?

When I designed/installed our gfch back in 1982, that included a pump overrun to prevent the boiler kettling. I put a pipe stat on the boiler return and the pump ran until the temp fell, and then the pump stopped.

Running continuously... shome mishtake shurely....

V8

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Re: ATAG boilers

#460039

Postby Mike4 » November 22nd, 2021, 10:49 am

88V8 wrote:
jackdaww wrote:.i forgot to say also that the pump runs continuously , even when the boiler is not running .

Why?

When I designed/installed our gfch back in 1982, that included a pump overrun to prevent the boiler kettling. I put a pipe stat on the boiler return and the pump ran until the temp fell, and then the pump stopped.

Running continuously... shome mishtake shurely....

V8


Yes, our pet Atag specialist in "The Combustion Chamber" writes about the 151 fault sometimes being caused by a failing PCB.

With this boiler the pump is controlled by the PCB, or rather it should be. If the pump is correctly installed and wired directly from to the pump terminals on the PCB as it should be, then the pump running all the time indicates a logic error or failure in the PCB. One for Atag to fix under guarantee, I'd say.

Here is the link I have to the Atag iR18 manual I was reading, with no 164 error in the error code list AFAICS. (Page 46.)
https://www.freeboilermanuals.com/asset ... tag-iR.pdf

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Re: ATAG boilers

#460139

Postby jackdaww » November 22nd, 2021, 5:04 pm

Mike4 wrote:
88V8 wrote:
jackdaww wrote:.i forgot to say also that the pump runs continuously , even when the boiler is not running .

Why?

When I designed/installed our gfch back in 1982, that included a pump overrun to prevent the boiler kettling. I put a pipe stat on the boiler return and the pump ran until the temp fell, and then the pump stopped.

Running continuously... shome mishtake shurely....

V8


Yes, our pet Atag specialist in "The Combustion Chamber" writes about the 151 fault sometimes being caused by a failing PCB.

With this boiler the pump is controlled by the PCB, or rather it should be. If the pump is correctly installed and wired directly from to the pump terminals on the PCB as it should be, then the pump running all the time indicates a logic error or failure in the PCB. One for Atag to fix under guarantee, I'd say.

Here is the link I have to the Atag iR18 manual I was reading, with no 164 error in the error code list AFAICS. (Page 46.)
https://www.freeboilermanuals.com/asset ... tag-iR.pdf


============

mike4

thank you for the link .

we have an earlier , or later version of the manual which does have code 164 , and doesnt have code 119 ! .

clearly the pump should not be running out of hours , when the unit is not on .

it remains to be seen if its an installation error or a fault in the unit .

man coming out to look soon we hope .

:)

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Re: ATAG boilers

#460397

Postby 9873210 » November 23rd, 2021, 8:44 pm

Mike4 wrote:Edit again to add more:
The error 164 mentioned is not in the manual but there is a 154. Could it have been that instead? If so, the manual says "154 Flow increases to fast ∆T to large, return > flow" so again, this is pointing towards a pump problem rather than a boiler fault. I'm imagining they mean "too large" rather than "to large", which actually suggests an intermittently sticking pump.


https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/6255552/ ... 200518.pdf
164 Flow switch not closed at heat demand (system pump not running)


If you look closely you will see it's a newer version of the manual.

I have several pet peeves here.

1) The manual does not have an easily interpreted version number and date.
2) The manual does not have a pointer to canonical URL for the latest and greatest version.
3) (Possible) if a water flow error commonly causes this code then the manual should have been updated.
4) Many technicians don't do the search, I don't really blame them because the manufacturer is not taking steps to make this easy and useful.

Essentially service is not given the attention it deserves as an essential part of product life cycle.

This is from my days of being a design engineer. The customer support engineers and design team would monitor field service reports, perform tests and update the documentation but many of the service techs were driving around with rev 0.1 pre-release copies of the manuals for a decade. They'd spend hours or days diagnosing a (new to them) problem that was the number one step on the up-to-date fault tree. It's not that the techs weren't smart and capable. It's just that we'd already spent days or weeks analyzing the problem and multiple possible solutions, and this should only need to be done once.

In the 90s when we went to CD-ROM* releases, updated quarterly. But many of the techs would not replace the old CDs, or would update them but would rely on memory instead of "ink". Some of them had very good memories, but we could not update them remotely. There was a skunk works project to do that, but it ran afoul of the ethics committee.

I know field service techs had related complaints about engineering. We did try to listen and deal with the ones we could. (One we couldn't deal with was rev 0.1 manuals being out of date. They had to go to the printer about 3 months before we froze a design.)

* Mostly so we could remove about half a tonne of manuals from each service van, either increasing fuel economy or allowing them to carry another half tonne of parts so that more service calls could be handled on the first trip.

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Re: ATAG boilers

#460422

Postby Mike4 » November 23rd, 2021, 10:40 pm

9873210 wrote:
Mike4 wrote:Edit again to add more:
The error 164 mentioned is not in the manual but there is a 154. Could it have been that instead? If so, the manual says "154 Flow increases to fast ∆T to large, return > flow" so again, this is pointing towards a pump problem rather than a boiler fault. I'm imagining they mean "too large" rather than "to large", which actually suggests an intermittently sticking pump.


https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/6255552/ ... 200518.pdf
164 Flow switch not closed at heat demand (system pump not running)


If you look closely you will see it's a newer version of the manual.

I have several pet peeves here.

1) The manual does not have an easily interpreted version number and date.
2) The manual does not have a pointer to canonical URL for the latest and greatest version.
3) (Possible) if a water flow error commonly causes this code then the manual should have been updated.
4) Many technicians don't do the search, I don't really blame them because the manufacturer is not taking steps to make this easy and useful.

Essentially service is not given the attention it deserves as an essential part of product life cycle.

This is from my days of being a design engineer. The customer support engineers and design team would monitor field service reports, perform tests and update the documentation but many of the service techs were driving around with rev 0.1 pre-release copies of the manuals for a decade. They'd spend hours or days diagnosing a (new to them) problem that was the number one step on the up-to-date fault tree. It's not that the techs weren't smart and capable. It's just that we'd already spent days or weeks analyzing the problem and multiple possible solutions, and this should only need to be done once.

In the 90s when we went to CD-ROM* releases, updated quarterly. But many of the techs would not replace the old CDs, or would update them but would rely on memory instead of "ink". Some of them had very good memories, but we could not update them remotely. There was a skunk works project to do that, but it ran afoul of the ethics committee.

I know field service techs had related complaints about engineering. We did try to listen and deal with the ones we could. (One we couldn't deal with was rev 0.1 manuals being out of date. They had to go to the printer about 3 months before we froze a design.)

* Mostly so we could remove about half a tonne of manuals from each service van, either increasing fuel economy or allowing them to carry another half tonne of parts so that more service calls could be handled on the first trip.



Yes I agree with all of that.

The trouble is, in this industry once a boiler manual has been issued, it tends to be set in aspic. Revisions and updates are very rare so this Atag update comes as a bit of a surprise to me. I blame the way the average UK consumer is so very focused on price and nothing else, so boiler manus tend to cheese-pare at every available opportunity in order to get to be the cheapest so every expense tends to be spared in UK products. Atag however, I think might be Dutch.

Further, there is nothing much in it for the manu to analyse and publish common breakdowns as the data emerges through the life of a boiler design - it just encourages technicians to fix them instead of fitting a whole new boiler! Even British Gas will commonly try to kid you parts are not available for <whatever boiler you have> and say you need a whole new one unless you push back and show them wrong.

The 'hive mind' is the main resource for me other than my own personal experience. "The Combustion Chamber" is populated by about 100 regularly-visiting boiler techs and pretty much whatever fault one encounters, describing it in that forum will result in two or three replies pointing one in the right direction - unlike the manuals which cover all bases without telling one the probabilities, and often missing the biggest ones. (In amongst a load of noise, as you can probably imagine!)


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