Heating AND Water, all on, or all off, only.

[Rubber_Ducky]

Lately me and my mum have been getting annoyed with the plumbing. We had our kitchen redone and the electrician installed a new electronic timer for the boiler. Naturally he didn't give us the manual -.-

Despite that I worked out how to use it just about. The thing that suprised me was that unlike our old one, this can control both hot water and central heating. Except it can't, if you turn on just hot water the boiler doesn't turn on. If you turn on just central heating it does - and the hot water gets hot as well.

The only control for chosing which we want is at the immersion heater, a valve that lets you choose how much hot water goes to central heating and how much goes to the taps. We don't even have a thermostat!

My question is, what needs changing so that I can say "I want hot water, but not central heating", and it will happen!?

Thanks in hopeful advance
-Ducky

Extra things you might want to know:
The boiler is quite an old one, in excess of five years I would guess. Its a "conventional" Baxi boiler, I say conventional because a guide I read said this is what boilers with an immersion heater and a water tank in the loft are called.
The immersion heater has no "boost" button / setting. I don't know what this means to be honest but my mum tells me this is very strange.

 

[Rob]

Sounds as though it may not be wired in correctly, i cant see any reason why you should not be able to have HW only.

Sounds as though you have a simplicity valve. In which case fitting the new programmer is useless, you need a basic timeswitch which is wired to boiler and pump and then you obviously control where it goes from there!

 

[Rubber_Ducky]

Sounds as though it may not be wired in correctly, i cant see any reason why you should not be able to have HW only.

Sounds as though you have a simplicity valve. In which case fitting the new programmer is useless, you need a basic timeswitch which is wired to boiler and pump and then you obviously control where it goes from there!

these paragraphs seem contradictory? One says not wired correctly is the issue, the other says wiring is fine, you have a simplicity valve.

Ok so, assuming you mean the latter, is there anyway I can tell for sure that this is the case? Where can I buy a timeswitch? Is it legal for me to fit this basic timeswitch myself?

 

[Rob]

i cant see where i say your wiring is fine

Its legal if you're competent, but you need to know what you're doing when it comes to wiring, may be worth getting the electrician back to fit a suitable timeswitch, who provided the last one?

 

[danfoss]

Aint' this same problem loads of us have, see: Heating on when only Hot Water switched on.

I've gone through all site - loads of times this crops up - and so far still no answer?

 

[ChrisR]

Ignoring combi boilers completely -
It's a common problem but there's no single answer. It depends on what system you have, what "controls" (Thermostats, motorised valves) are fittted, what if anything isn't working and whether the whole thing was wired up correctly in the first place.
People learn to live with systems which have never been right, too, so when they change a setting somewhere it all stops.

Modern systems have (at least) :
a room thermostat
a hw cylinder thermostat
one or more motorised valves to control the boiler's output to heat the rads OR the HW, or both
A programmer, which may allow separate or combined timings for each of CH and HW
A pump which pumps boiler water to whichever of CH or HW needs it.

An OLD system might have a boiler, pump and a simple on-off timer, and that's it. Knob on the boiler is the only temp control.

We can't guess what anyone has from the computer screen, but if you can tell us as much as you can then we can usually guide to where the problem lies.

An Immersion Heater is not connected with the rest of the heating system - they never share the same timer.

 

[Rubber_Ducky]

My system has:

Boiler + Electronic timer in the kitchen
Immersion heater with a simple valve for choosing how much % of water goes to HW / Heating
NO thermostat
No thermostatic radiator valves, not that that means much
Water tank in the loft

I can't really tell you more than that from my desk, anything else you need to know I can find out for you, except going into the loft is a pain in the arse (only ladder we have as 1 foot shorter than the loft so you have to jump up and down!)

I'm not competent with plumbing / electricals outside of a computer, but I am a fast learner and if I have an in depth guide by my side I reckon I could do it. The problem is the electrician is a neighbour so I can't turn and say you've done a poor job (if he has) since I don't really want to fall out with him.

 

[danfoss]

We can't guess what anyone has from the computer screen, but if you can tell us as much as you can then we can usually guide to where the problem lies.
.[/quote]

Thank you for the reply:

I have a danfoss controller (brand new), a baxi boiler, traditional cyl hot water tank, a temp controller in airin cupboard with hot water tank. . - no temp controller in house - just have use on boiler itself.

 

[Rubber_Ducky]

Still need help on this...

 

[Gasman1015]

If you have a manual changeover valve (simplicity)then changing the timer for one that has the option of hot water or heating will have been no use to you at all.

To have both hot water and heating independently then you will need to have a three way motorized valve fitted in place of the manual valve, a cylinder thermostat and room thermostat wired as required.