Camray 5 65\90A Oil Usage Question

[btolsta]

Evening everyone,

This is going to be one of those annoying questions which could be how long is a piece of string lol

We moved into a new detached single-story bungalow in April. The oil boiler is used for the heating and water with a megaflow cylinder. It's a new build (10 years old) so insulated to the max with even underfloor insulation. When we moved in I replaced the programmer with a nest thermostat since there wasn't one before in the house so we could control the heat more with the stat. There are 10 rads in the system. The house itself feels warm and the stat is usually set for 20 degrees. Once the house has heated up we hardly hear the boiler fire again. Our usage via the Nest reports is on average the boiler is heating for 5 hours through the winter months and just over 90 mins in the summer. We had the boiler serviced and the nozzle changed before we filled the tank. I have attached a screenshot of winter use.

We came from an old house that was super cold, rubbish rads, no stat and so the heating was and water was on for 90 mins in the morning and 6 hours at night constant. Even still a full tank (1000 litres) lasted us the year. That was our yardstick moving in here thinking it should be on par at least.......

Since we filled the tank in the new house in August (1000 litres) the level has dipped by 800 litres in those 5 months which is a real surprise to me. Is this somewhere near the norm or should I be looking at a fault? It works out at just over 5 litres a day average. The tank is secured with a double padlock so i don't think any has gone missing that way. I had a look at the boiler docs and couldn't really see a litres per hour estimate on it.

Side question as well is on the burner there is number dial\gauge that is showing the number 5 and i have no idea what that actually is. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance to anyone who has any responses for me.

 

[snb]

If it has standard nozzle then it uses 2.5lt per hour when the burner is lit

 

[oilboffin]

Yup that's about right I'm sorry but these boilers do use that amount your old boiler was probably
undersized and this one is the right size.You get just over 10kw per litre with oil so work out how many bedrooms you have,sizes,and heat needs and you'll see how much you really need.On a 3 bedroom house you'll prob need a 90,000btu so I think the boilers right.Bob

 

[btolsta]

Yup that's about right I'm sorry but these boilers do use that amount your old boiler was probably
undersized and this one is the right size.You get just over 10kw per litre with oil so work out how many bedrooms you have,sizes,and heat needs and you'll see how much you really need.On a 3 bedroom house you'll prob need a 90,000btu so I think the boilers right.Bob

It is a three bedroom house and the old place was always cold so you may be dead right with what you have said about the sizing. One additional thing is the boiler runs for about 3 mins every 25 mins even though we are not calling for any heat or water at the time. The rads never get warm then and we have run out of hot water so I know although it’s firing the water is not going anywhere. That’s just burning oil for no reason then?

 

[oilboffin]

That could be a control fault get an engineer or a sparky to cast their eye over it.Bob

 

[Terrywookfit]

Evening everyone,

This is going to be one of those annoying questions which could be how long is a piece of string lol
Side question as well is on the burner there is number dial\gauge that is showing the number 5 and i have no idea what that actually is. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance to anyone who has any responses for me.

It is the air shutter setting for the burner... DO NOT ADJUST !!!

 

[btolsta]

It is the air shutter setting for the burner... DO NOT ADJUST !!!

Thanks for that. I go by the mantra of not changing stuff I don’t know

 

[snb]

Deleted replied t
o wrong post

 

[btolsta]

your boiler is combi with a heat store attached. The firing up every 30 mins or so is to retain the store temp. You probably don't have timing for this but it is a worth while investment so that you can time it to be off when you don't want hot water( even if this is for the night period only as this is still 6 to hours 8 every day and could save about 120lt of oil per year)

I actually never realised this was a Combi boiler. So this is “normal behaviour” then to keep that store warm? How could you change the timing on that? I am guessing it’s not done with a normal programmer. We have a nest heatlink controlling the boiler just now.

 

[Terrywookfit]

your boiler is combi with a heat store attached. The firing up every 30 mins or so is to retain the store temp. You probably don't have timing for this but it is a worth while investment so that you can time it to be off when you don't want hot water( even if this is for the night period only as this is still 6 to hours 8 every day and could save about 120lt of oil per year)

NO IT IS NOT A COMBI !!!

 

[snb]

is the boiler located outside or in a cold room with little or no heat? If this is the case it could be that it has frost stat that is causing it to fire up, especially if it hasn't been fitted and wired with a pipettes

 

[oilboffin]

Right your boiler is a heat only does what it says it makes heat.it's not a combi from the boilera pump take water to a valve or valves to heat hot water or your rads if rads not getting hot the look to your pump or valves and bleed rads if valves not working get an engineer to check system also check wall stat and get a two channel programer in and away you go

 

[oilhead]

Your Nest is obviously keeping the boiler fired all the time, and probably only operating the pump for heating. This means the boiler will be keeping itself hot when you don't want it. Check your nest wiring.

 

[btolsta]

Your Nest is obviously keeping the boiler fired all the time, and probably only operating the pump for heating. This means the boiler will be keeping itself hot when you don't want it. Check your nest wiring.

You were dead on! The wiring of the Nest was right but it looked like the CH wire was making contact with one of the live feeds so it was calling for heat all the time......that explains some of the extra oil usage!