What the customer had been told, what we found once the burner was out, and why this boiler did not need replacing.
A Worcester Greenstar Ri in Walsall kept going into ignition lockout, and previous engineers had told the customer a new boiler was the answer. With the fan and burner out we found the burner gasket had deteriorated and the electrode had slight damage. We carry both as van stock, so we fitted them on the same visit, tested the boiler through its ignition and running cycle, and left it working. No new boiler.
Get a second opinion before you spend two thousand pounds. Leave a number and we will ring you back — usually within the hour during office hours.
The customer rang about a Worcester Greenstar Ri in Walsall that kept going into ignition lockout. It would try to fire, fail, and lock out, and pressing reset only bought a short while before it did the same again. Previous engineers had told him the boiler was done and he needed a new one, and he wanted a second opinion before spending that kind of money.
An ignition lockout tells you the boiler could not establish or hold a flame. It does not tell you why. So rather than reading the symptom and reaching for a quote, we took the fan and burner assembly off to look at the parts that actually make and prove the flame.
The burner gasket had deteriorated. This is the seal between the burner assembly and the heat exchanger, and you can see the state of it in the photos above: crumbling on its inner edge, no longer doing its job. When that seal breaks down the burner is not sealed to the heat exchanger, the flame becomes unstable, and the electrode struggles to prove it. The boiler does what it is designed to do and locks out. The electrode itself also had slight damage, which on its own can cause the same fault.
Both parts are things we carry as van stock, so there was no return visit. We fitted a new burner gasket and a new electrode, reassembled the fan and burner, brought the boiler back up and tested its operation through repeated ignition and running cycles. It fired first time and stayed lit.
The customer was extremely happy, and a little surprised. He had been under the impression that a new boiler was the only option.
We do not know what the previous engineers looked at, so we will not comment on their advice. What we can say is what we found: a gasket and an electrode, two routine service parts on a boiler that is well supported and still has a good supply of spares. There is a point at which a boiler is not worth repairing, and we have written about when to stop repairing on our boiler repair page. An old boiler on its second or third major part with a corroding heat exchanger is money going the wrong way. A boiler with a perished gasket is not.
Our rule is simple. If we think a boiler should be replaced, we show you the reading or the part that says so, and we put the repair price and the replacement price side by side so you can decide. Nobody should be condemning a boiler without showing you why.
Our boiler repair callout is £99, which covers attendance, diagnosis and the first hour of work. Parts are quoted before we fit them. That, against £1,999 and upwards for a new boiler, is why a second opinion is worth a phone call. The full price list is on our prices page, and more on how we diagnose is on the boiler repair page.
The boiler tried to light, could not establish or hold a flame, and shut itself down as a safety measure. On the Ri the control dial has a reset position. Resetting clears the lockout, but if the underlying fault is still there the boiler will lock out again. Repeated lockouts are a sign to stop resetting and get it looked at.
The gasket seals the burner to the heat exchanger. When it perishes the burner is no longer sealed, the flame becomes unstable and the electrode cannot reliably prove it, so the boiler locks out. It is a cheap part and a common cause of lockouts on older Worcester boilers, and it is easy to miss unless the fan and burner come off.
We carry the common service parts for the major brands, Worcester included: gaskets, electrodes, sensors, fans and the like. That is why 88% of our repairs are finished on the first visit. We cannot carry every part for every boiler, and where something has to be ordered we say so and come back with it.
If nobody has shown you a reading, a part or a photograph that explains why, yes. A £99 diagnosis is a small price against a £2,000 boiler. Sometimes the first engineer is right and we will tell you so. Sometimes, as here, it is a gasket.
Job attended and photographed by our engineers in Walsall, September 2026. Written up by Saeed Iqbal, the engineer who leads Synergy Gas & Plumbing (Gas Safe registered 594385). More recent jobs in the area are on our Walsall page, and every job we write up is on the case studies index.
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