Boilermate a class ov bmas180ovr

Hi, just moved into a property with a Boilermate and it is using a lot of electricity. Gas usage is almost negligible, electricity is very high. Boilermate seems to be regularly doing something, even when there is no demand for hot water or heating. Eg middle of the night with radiators off and everyone asleep. It comes on a number of times for about 8-10 mins or so and then goes quiet. (No Gas usage, only electricity.)

I have previously only had a combi boiler setup in other properties but while having almost instant hot water is nice, really hot water seems a bit of an overkill and not cost effective at all.

Are these systems just notoriously expensive or do I need to get someone in to look at it?

Would most plumbers be familiar with these or do I need to get some sort of specialist?

Thanks

The A Class has an immersion which can be used if your boiler is offline for any reason. So these is a mode switch on the front which should be OFF for normal operation but if on then the immersion will run and the boiler will not be called. This does lead to very hot water because there is no adjustment on the immersion so you get full beans. If this mode then the central heating is also being supplied by the immersion heater so for sure it should not be used when you need central heating only for emergencies or for hot water to taps only. Hope that helps.

Sorry a response to your other points. These use a system boiler only to my knowledge i.e they should be not be run off a combi boiler the boilermate heat exchanger gives you mains pressure hot water.

I've had mine for 15 years and touch wood its been very reliable and efficient. We have a 5 bedroom house and our bills are circa £200 per month gas and elec.

More and more plumbers have now come across these type of units but not many like working on them.

For about £175 per year you can buy a policy from gledhill to cover breakdowns - I've had had this last couple of years because I'm worried something will break and the repairs bills will be high - so far not happened but for sure its going to break at some point .

Hi Mike, thanks for this info. I have read a bit about these and there was some mention of a switch, however our unit does not have a switch on the front. The boiler was off when we moved in so it sounds very feasible that the way he boiler mate was doing all the heating, but how would I switch it back if there is no switch on the front? The only switch is the green controller and the reset above it.

Hi,

Well if there is no other switch then I would expect that when you switch your boiler on then it would detect this and de-activate the immersion. Sounds like that is not happening? Presume you have switched your boiler on and nothing is happening? So maybe your system boiler is not working?

The boliermate normally is the controller as well so when there is a demand for heat the boilermate calls for the boiler to operate.

I wonder whether the people before you didn't understand the system and they couldn't get it to work so they left the boiler off and gave up. When I had ny boiler upgraed a few years back we had to run an additional wire back to the boiler because the new boilers need to keep the circc pump running after they shut down to dissipate heat.

Any how sorry I cant help more, my boiler mate a class is obviously a slightly different model to yours so you need a clever heating engineer to sort it out for you.

Thanks for your help. The odd thing is that the boiler is firing up. But maybe only once a day.
Anyway, at least I have confirmation something isn’t right. I will look around for a heating engineer in Hampshire who can take a look for me.

Many thanks again!

Yes good luck - maybe check you have plenty of water in the system i.e your header tank is at the right level otherwise perhaps the boiler circ pump has failed.