Central Heating

[the_lone_wolf]

The law of sod appears to have struck the house here...

Central heating has gone a bit wibble, the thermostat clicks when you turn it up but the pump doesn't kick in and get the water flowing...

The odd thing is that the heating comes on occasionally, but doesn't seem to be in any kind of pattern and it's not keeping the house as warm as it would normally?

Any ideas? Engineer was £75 just to get to the front door, and I even offered to provide my own lube...

[maviczap]

£75 is about the norm, I pay about £65 for them to come out and service my boiler. About the same for an emergency call out

Could be a miriad of things, so it would help to know what kind of CH system you have.

Combi boiler, hot water tank

My boiler developed a fault and several engineers came out to try and fix it, but the fault kept coming back, same as before. Then they sent out their top guy who knew what the problem was almost immediately. And he was the yougest of the lot, one of the others was an ex British Gas employee with loads of experience, but he couldn't solve the fault, as it was in the electronics

Sometimes a local independant guy in the yellow pages can be cheaper, but depends how good they are. Make sure they're CORGI registered

[the_lone_wolf]

Originally Posted by maviczap

Could be a miriad of things, so it would help to know what kind of CH system you have.

Boiler downstairs, hot water tank upstairs

Sorry, don't know much about plumbing

i'm going for zone valve/three port valve without knowing any details.
as said combi or system boiler what make model?

[maviczap]

Not a combi system then

There is elec to the thermostat then, so then is the bolier igniting when the themo is clicked & have you got hot water in the tank?

If you have hot water then the boiler looks to be working ok

Then I'd suspect the pump next, you can hear & feel it working. So long as you know what it looks like

ok not combi, when you turn the stat up with heating turned on, does the pump run is there 240volts to it, if you can hear the pump humming get a large flathead scredriver undo the silver screw in middle of the pump put screwdriver in and turn the driver to get the pump going again, this will only work if there is power to the pump, if no power suspect the zone valve, see the little lever on the side of the valve push it open all the way quickly does it make the contacts, if it does you need new valve valve head or motor for inside the head, all depending on what type of valve it is. hth.

Water pressure?

Have you bleed the uppermost radiator in the house, you could find over the summer CH break air has built up in the system. It normally rises to the highest radiator in the house.

[DarrenSV650S]

Have you flicked the kill switch?

[the_lone_wolf]

Wow! Thanks for the enthusiastic response folks

No shortage of hot water, it went wiggy yesterday morning and we've had showers etc since with no interruption

@Scoobs - not sure what you mean? Both cold and hot water seem to be flowing from the taps as well as before, just the heating that doesn't kick in when you up the thermostat, imagine you're explaining it to a small child, or possibly an intelligent dog, and you'll get the level right...

@maviczap - The boiler didn't used to respond to the thermostat switching before and doesn't now, there is hot water in the tank, but the pump doesn't appear to be functioning

@bluefishman - as above, pump doesn't click on or appear to be activated when the thermostat switches. How would I go about seeing if it's getting 240V without electrocuting myself? This is the pump itself:





The pump does seem to work, after we run hot water from a tap, the pump activates a minute or two afterwards and the radiators in the house heat up but after a while it stops...

I assume the "zone valve" is the black plastic lever ~1" long on the side of the pump?

@no_akira - There are five radiators on the 1st floor at the same height, if the pump activates as above when the hot water runs and the radiators all heat up it sounds more like a problem with the thermostat or pump no?