central heating only comes on with h water, stumped engineer

After 23 pages a recap of the best bits is worth while..

doitall said:
Almost certainly a wiring fault, if Bill preferably posts the pics to me we can get it up and running in no time.
No & no.

doitall said:
Still say it's a wiring fault.
No

doitall said:
Wiring fault No1 perhaps.
No

doitall said:
Maybe a system and electrical fault or either.
Your wavering, though nice for BonkersBill to know you've ruled out the only other possibility: operator error.

doitall said:
Most likely problem is the MV not moving to HTG only or the boiler pump not switching.
No

doitall said:
Why is everyone forgetting the heating works perfectly when on with the hot water.
Everyone wasn’t forgetting but then how would you know? given you claim …
doitall said:
I haven't read any of the previous posts, maybe skimmed a few but thats all.
Most of the time I prefer to form my own opinion.
Are you sure?!

doitall said:
….the original post [is] typical of an electrical fault.
I would almost say the pump is wired wrong
No. Re-read the OP it was screaming 'circulation' problem from the "boiler will only come on for 30 seconds" bit.

doitall said:
At a quick glance it has all the hallmarks of a one pipe system.
No, there weren’t any.

doitall page 22 said:
For your information only the pump is sucking the water from the boiler,
FYI no it isn’t. Its under positive pressure. The only bit being 'sucked' is the few inches back to the air separator.

doitall said:
We're not forgetting that everything electrically works as it should. because I don't think it does.
No.

doitall said:
If the boiler is making funny noises it suggests trapped air or scale.
No. And so on..

doitall said:
The sooner you, stop thinking and leaving it to the pros the better your chances are
Wouldn’t be as entertaining though.

doitall said:
What you have there matt!e is what we drew on page 12.
No, what you have Mattie is what I said on page 9:
4xpaws page 9 said:
Its possible someone's tee'd the central heating return pipe into the primary flow from the boiler
and
4xpaws page 9 said:
it could be set up flowing the wrong way through the boiler!
doitall page 12 said:
4expaws mentioned what we later sketched out although I didn't read it.
Not even yer mum would believe that!

Mikefromlondon said:
If I missed out 4expaws post, my apologies, but my acknowledgement must go to him obviously if he came up with this theory first, I secondede it. So acknowledgement or credit where it is due to 4expaws .
Thanks. But ??..
Mikefromlondon said:
I read as many earlier posts on this thread as I could, and then I turned to last few posts on pages 9 and 10, and thought no one has been able to come up with anything yet.
Re-read the last few posts on page 9 again!

Anyway Mattie's last picture's worth a thousand words. Well done.

Bonkersbill, your cheapest option is cross over the pair of pipes over in the cylinder cupboard just where the 28mm changes to 22mm prior to the air seperator and on the return from the cylinder. Then balance your rads to get the best out of downstairs rads. Worst case you'll need to resize 15mmm to 22mm rad feed for downstairs running in conduit. What's happened is when the systems been converted from gravity HW to fully pumped, the installer's guessed the wrong 28mm pipe as the boiler return. In their defence it was probably plumbed in wrong to the cylinder at the very beginning and they haven't first checked.
4xpaws page 9 said:
they're more likely to guess the wrong pipe as the boiler return.
 
Sponsored Links
doitall page 22 wrote:
For your information only the pump is sucking the water from the boiler,
FYI no it isn’t. Its under positive pressure. The only bit being 'sucked' is the few inches back to the air separator.

If the pump is on the return pipe, you may want to rethink that statement.

You haven't covered the capped off heating flow, or why the heating return pipe gets hot in gravity mode.

Have to say you went to a lot of trouble 4xpaws to prove you may be half right. :LOL: Perhaps if you had done a drawing that made sense we could have save 15 pages ish.

No. Re-read the OP it was screaming 'circulation' problem from the "boiler will only come on for 30 seconds" bit.

That could be scale or several other problems, including the pump not on the return into the injector tee.
 
Some intersting quotes from 4xpaws, I swear, I did not read your post first, and when someone mentioned that you had already come up with what I suggested, thats when I went back to check your post, and indeed you came up with same brilliant idea! You've got as good brains as I have!! :LOL:

Any way, who would go to someone's place to sort a leak from the heating system starting at 5pm and finishing off at 4am, \i have just got back, after sorting out a bad leak frrom the heating coil upper (flow) 22mm pipe, the coupling had come loose, and no amount of tightening it would stop the dripping tapping, had to empty both CH and DHW using just a jug! forgot my hose at home! but managed to cure the leak, but what a dilema, as I turned off rad valves to drain unnecessary amount of water, these rad valves started to leak from the top spindle! this was just gone 8pm, and went to nearest Wickes and it was closed, close at 8 on Sat, so went to my place 10 miles away to pick up some sparews valves I had! took another good hour for tanks to fill up, and test the \CH and the HW function bled the rads on which \i had to change valves, 3 of them!

But this was a favour, for a mate who was going to sort out my laptop as it got highly infected and while he tackled that for me \i did his heating, in return, he replaced my HD foc, as well as gave me his spare \Note book, a good deal I would say! he bought a pizza, also filled my car with a tenner's worth of fuel when I had to get back to my house to get the rad valves.

I am typing this on his new Note book, that he gave me hence I am not used gto its keyboard and keep getting \\\ this before i etc.

so yes who provides this kind of dedication, coming home at 4 am!
 
Some intersting quotes from 4xpaws, I swear, I did not read your post first, and when someone mentioned that you had already come up with what I suggested, thats when I went back to check your post, and indeed you came up with same brilliant idea! You've got as good brains as I have!! :LOL:

Oh Dear Oh Dear
You were never suggesting that it could have been the valve then?
Mike while you are busy patting yourself on the back I think we should wait until the op confirms he has it sorted and while we are waiting I think you should have a recap yourself mate, firstly here is a (edited down) quote from you from when you came into the thread on page 10

when you have a problem on a fairly complex system, it is better to isolate the problem into smaller sections, taking one section at a time, applying logical thinking, one can sort all kinds of hurdles.
But this requires patient and logical thinking.
One also has to have a fairly good knowledge of how central heating systems work, ( etc etc)
Don't forget to rule out the programmer and the timer switch, (etc etc)

By this time, the valve programmer etc had been ruled out, and a few were suspecting the root cause of the boiler shuting down ie circulation problems in ch mode, oh and a domestic heating system is far from complexed btw

you mentioned that the CH only works more or less normally with HW selected, and when CH only is selected it's only on for 30 secs or so.
I'm wondering whether there's a flow problem around the heating circuit, which is being compensated for by the HW circuit when both are selected. It may be that primary flow is increased through the HW circuit as a result of its laboured route around the heating circuit..

About these 28mm pipes, did it used to be gravity primary with pumped heating that been changed to fully pumped?
Is the radiators return pipe goes straight to boiler or via 28mm return? These back boiler use injector tee fitted on gravity return with heating return tee in to help with gravity moving when heating is on.
Maybe the injector is nearly blocked?
Just a thought.... :!:
Dan.

reading through I'd say it was definatly a circulation problem on the Rad circuit, the op needs to sort out his pipework

and even before 4xpaws diagnosis on page 9, he suspected

It reads like reverse circulation. Installer's tee'd in cylinder return in the wrong place when converting the system from semigravity to fully pumped and either the CH flow coming off the 3PV is a dead leg, isolated or blocked prior to the first tee on it feeding rads that heat up when the HW is on.

That to me is not an electrical fault, it sounds more like a flow restriction of some sort.

Then you started to apply some logical thought with your brillant Mind

So in my view your problkem appwears to be associated very close to this 3 way valve, on the port that feeds CH flow, but not return,

already ruled out have another Guess

I got a feeling you got something stuck in your diverter valve port to CH

as above

I just had another line of thought, one never knows what happens when one who does not fully well understand the function of things in general, can end up using them incorrectly, or for those who might have a go at things, thinking they are well knowledged about it, but gets it wrong. we know we all love doing things but certain things are best left to the professionals.

Now my new line of thought says,.............

I wont go on as you were wrong But the Quote is absolute class
have another guess

Obviously I cannot rule out yet another unlikely possibility, a 3 way valve internals could be assembled wrongly whereby it will open in two settings and fail to open in a 3rd.
wrong,and the workings of a midposition valve could never be assembled that way, your later drawings used the symbols for a diverter valve
and any way logical thinking would have told the valve was opening to central heating as the mid position was working fine
then UpgradeME tried to tell you
Mike, one of the reasons this thread is now 12 pages long is several posters are asking the same questions that were discussed and answered in earlier posts.

I can safely assume someone has connected the 3 port valve incorrectly, now that you have determined your flow is fine as you have managed to get all your rads red hot! Time to trace exactly the hot water flow pipe from the boiler to this diverter valve and make sure it is plumbed into the in coming port, usually in the middle, as the middle part

This is a typical example (It's already been discussed, replaced new and if you were to look at the pictures, already know the answer so wouldn't have asked this question...again!) :rolleyes:

but you wouldn't listen
I don't know if your comments actually will help Op to narrow down the fault or mine, but still without me reading all 10 posts or so, I am convinced this is his problem,.
His comments were helping, yours were adding to the ops confusion because you couldn't be bothered to read the earlier posts
the valve had been taked out of the equation long ago by people who do this for a living
then more confusion and an early pat on the back
thank you upgradme, that picture clarifies that. pump does indeed feed the port A,
Mind you at first if you don't look more carefully, the angle of the picture taken can easily mislead you with that other pipe sticking from port B upwards in front of the pump. But yes if you exapand the picture you can't miss the fact that the pump is conncetd to port A
But between us all we have somehow got to the bottom of op's problem.
happy ending chaps! :LOL:
well no it wasn't a happy ending because to everybody else the pump was clearly correctly connected to the AB port and were all trying to figure out the pipework problem for the next few pages
but for some bizzare reason you went back to guessing at the valve (which was I repeat ruled out long ago)
and for a very good video link that explains about a y plan heating systems, the idea is this covers electrical problems since it is quite possible that your 3pv is not sending a live feed to the motor pump when it is in CH mode,
logically thinking not possible at all since the boiler was firing as expected in central heating mode, and an awful video too as his explaination of how it works electrically is totally wrong, as was your possibility concerning the valve,

Doitall is asking Bill whether he traced the pipes with the pump running or without the pump running, I am of the opinion, that he should check with the pump running since that is how the water will be forced to flow, whereas, just relying on gravity it may run or flow in the opposite direction and give us confused results,

Doitall's test was a good logically thought out one, it has been explained to you why
since you couldn't get your brilliant logical brain around it :rolleyes:

ps sorry mods for the excessive quoting:D

Matt
 
Sponsored Links
I dont have time to read 24 pages!

But has the fault been found?

Has his wife's £100 an hour man been round?

Has he poured water down the pipe onto his missus yet?

If each of you paid me £5 then I could go round and sort it out for him!
 
I dont have time to read 24 pages!

But has the fault been found?

Nothing comfirmed as yet Tony I think the op was going to go down the "pouring water down the Pipe" route last I heard
I merely reposted the ops diagram of how he thinks the system is plumbed and marked it up explaining how it could be working circulation wise

Matt
 
Are you lot just trying to get in a few more pages to get a record or something lol. Job done! i poured water through and to me at least proved the 28mm pipes were crossed when the water came out of the top pipe at the boiler, i then had no hesitation in switching them over. In hind site, this was just about sorted at about page 10 but i think there were alot of ideas and no proof as to what the problem was, im sure this could have gone on for a few more pages yet but with the looming bill from the engineer my missis had organised, a bit of thinking out of the box for me made me take the plunge. im sure some of you are still going to be saying well what about this and that and why did it do this when we did that, i had a few blaming me for certain things not being done properly but hey, im great at diy but no engineer so give me a break. i would like to thank a few of you for your stamina and persistance with this one and i hope some good ideas have been shared between you all to have made it worth while. Now all i have to do is start a new thread for the real reason i needed to sort out this in the 1st place, im installing a multifuel stove to run along side the boiler and im wanting to know how this needs to be piped in to my existing system, if its too much work i will just go for the stove otherwise i will get some one in to plumb in the new boiler stove. At least i now have a working diagram of the system. Thanks alot and cheers to you all. PS i clicked ignore on Agile after about the 1st 4 pages, i didnt know everyone else could still see his posts, lol.
 
Odd that he would want to click on an ignore me post when I have been about the only one to address him directly and try to point him forward!

He should have been clicking the thanks button instead!

But there are naught as strange as folk!
 
Are you lot just trying to get in a few more pages to get a record or something lol. Job done! i poured water through and to me at least proved the 28mm pipes were crossed when the water came out of the top pipe at the boiler, i then had no hesitation in switching them over. In hind site, this was just about sorted at about page 10 but i think there were alot of ideas and no proof as to what the problem was, im sure this could have gone on for a few more pages yet but with the looming bill from the engineer my missis had organised, a bit of thinking out of the box for me made me take the plunge. im sure some of you are still going to be saying well what about this and that and why did it do this when we did that, i had a few blaming me for certain things not being done properly but hey, im great at diy but no engineer so give me a break. i would like to thank a few of you for your stamina and persistance with this one and i hope some good ideas have been shared between you all to have made it worth while. Now all i have to do is start a new thread for the real reason i needed to sort out this in the 1st place, im installing a multifuel stove to run along side the boiler and im wanting to know how this needs to be piped in to my existing system, if its too much work i will just go for the stove otherwise i will get some one in to plumb in the new boiler stove. At least i now have a working diagram of the system. Thanks alot and cheers to you all. PS i clicked ignore on Agile after about the 1st 4 pages, i didnt know everyone else could still see his posts, lol.

Glad you got it sorted, where did you switch them around, where you had originally extended them by any chance?
 
It would have been amusing if the £100 an hour engineer was unable to solve the problem. :mrgreen:
 
Well done Bill, glad you managed to get it sorted out, be it at the expense of your misses getting wet! (lol)

Bill I have send you some information regarding multifuel burners, check your msg box.

Matt1, I am never afraid of constructive cricism, infact if anything it helps one to get even better! But thanks for taking the time to making all those hilarious points, you don't see it but i helped the ball rolling again when the thread nearly died prematurely!! And quite honestly, i am a bit dissapointed that it did't quite make to 30 pages!
 
Yes i crossed them over where i extended them and before anyone states the obvious, i did label them before disconecting them, they went back exactly the way they came off, if only i had made a mistake hey, i would have fixed it without even knowing it. Thanks again everyone, im sure some of the suming up at the end will give some amusment for a few weeks.
 
you don't see it but i helped the ball rolling again when the thread nearly died prematurely!!

:eek: You remind me of an ex-colleague that always tried to take credit for other people's work! (It didn't win him many friends...) :rolleyes:

OP, glad you got it sorted in the end! :)
 

DIYnot Local

Staff member

If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.

Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.


Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local

 
Sponsored Links
Back
Top