My Excelsior (White Label Ariston, manufactured by Merloni) Combi Boiler keeps shutting itself down. The only pattern that I can see is that this happens when the washing machine is running. On reset the fume sensor LED flashes, which would indicate that there is a problem with fumes or I guess the fume sensor.

However the Merloni technical line very quickly, and without listening to all the symptoms, decided that it was because when the washing machine is on a rinse cycle "all combi boilers" would shutdown in the same way. The reason given is that "all combi boilers" only operate when no more than one additional tap/appliance is drawing cold water.

This seems plausable, however I haven't heard or read anything about this obvious downside to combi ownership.

Is this the case, and if so is there anything I can do to help the problem (other than making sure that nobody touches the cold water when the washing machine is running)?

Bernard Franckel, December 2004

maybe you just suck at diy?

James Highmoor, August 2007