Hive Active heating single channel receiver replacing time clock

[Peter Slevin]

Hi,
this is my first time posting here, please be patient, I have a very basic iol fired CH system, the boiler is a warmflow Kabin Pak Pre-Pumped Boiler(KPHE) with a pre-wired factory-fitted burner, thermostat and circulating pump. Currently simply operated by a rwb7 programmer that switches the boiler on and off at set times, there is no thermostat in the house. The system is gravity fed with a separate hot water storage tank and immersion heater, as far as the central heating goes it heats the hot water tank at the same time as the heating. I dont have any valves on the heating to split hot water from radiators. I have installed the Hive receiver according to the following wiring instructions.

N=Perm Neutral
L=Perm Live
1. Common= Neutral to Boiler
2. Nothing connected
3. Heating on (NO) = Brown to boiler
4. Unused on single channel

My understanding is that the hive should take care of the 230volt switching to fire-up the boiler, all the indications from the hive is that everything is operating ok, however the boiler does not fire-up. Hive are unable to help and don't seem to have much experience of oil fired CH sytems.

Has anyone come accross this type of issue. any help greatly appreciated.

 

[Deleted member 267285]

Common is usually a live not a neutral, especially from the boiler. Which “brown” from the boiler have you used?

 

[Peter Slevin]

Hi,
this is my first time posting here, please be patient, I have a very basic iol fired CH system, the boiler is a warmflow Kabin Pak Pre-Pumped Boiler(KPHE) with a pre-wired factory-fitted burner, thermostat and circulating pump. Currently simply operated by a rwb7 programmer that switches the boiler on and off at set times, there is no thermostat in the house. The system is gravity fed with a separate hot water storage tank and immersion heater, as far as the central heating goes it heats the hot water tank at the same time as the heating. I dont have any valves on the heating to split hot water from radiators. I have installed the Hive receiver according to the following wiring instructions.

N=Perm Neutral
L=Perm Live
1. Common= Neutral to Boiler
2. Nothing connected
3. Heating on (NO) = Brown to boiler
4. Unused on single channel

My understanding is that the hive should take care of the 230volt switching to fire-up the boiler, all the indications from the hive is that everything is operating ok, however the boiler does not fire-up. Hive are unable to help and don't seem to have much experience of oil fired CH sytems.

Has anyone come accross this type of issue. any help greatly appreciated.

Hi thank you for your reply, the neutral and the the brown is a live going to the boiler from the original time switch, this is how the boiler gets switched on, I am trying to replace a simple time switch that at present just complets the circuit with the Live and Neutral to the boiler, put simply a bit like just plugging the boiler into the mains if that makes sense.

 

[Peter Slevin]

Hi thank you for your reply, the neutral and the the brown is a live going to the boiler from the original time switch, this is how the boiler gets switched on, I am trying to replace a simple time switch that at present just complets the circuit with the Live and Neutral to the boiler, put simply a bit like just plugging the boiler into the mains if that makes sense.

Below picture shows wiring for RWB 7 if that hepls, I had a link wire from perm live to 2 for 240v switching and internal wiring

 

[Deleted member 267285]

I could be wrong, @stem, @ianmcd or @ericmark should be a able to confirm, they’re the mutts nuts:

L from rwb7 to L on Hive
N from rwb7 to N on Hive
4 From rwb7 to 3 on Hive
Place a link between L on Hive and Common on Hive

 

[ericmark]

2 becomes 1 and 4 becomes 3, however we have no idea how original was wired. So in real terms can't say how it should be wired.

 

[Peter Slevin]

Thanks guys for getting back to me, if I put a link from L to 1 it blows the fuse, I tried this earlier, thank god for fused spurs, thanks for the replys.

 

[Deleted member 267285]

A photo of current wiring may help .

 

[stem]

I have installed the Hive receiver according to the following wiring instructions.

N=Perm Neutral
L=Perm Live
1. Common= Neutral to Boiler
2. Nothing connected
3. Heating on (NO) = Brown to boiler
4. Unused on single channel.

I'm not sure where you got the instructions from, but Neutrals only ever go to N. All of the other terminals are for LIVE WIRES ONLY. Yet you have a Netural connected to '1. Common' !

Based on the title of your post, I assume that you have removed the rwb7 programmer, and installed the Hive in it's place, which would be the usual way of installation. [the Hive includes time as well as temperature control]

Also, a Single Channel Hive will not work on a system with a hot water cylinder. If you were to connect both the hot water and heating to its Single Channel That would mean that the hot water would only work when the Hive tells the central heating to be on. So in the summer when the house was warm and the thermostat has turned off, no hot water. Also, during the winter when the room where the Hive thermostat is located was up to temperature, it couldn't heating the hot water then either.

You need a Dual Channel Version of the Hive, and based on what you have said, I believe that you have gravity circulation of the hot water and only pumped central heating (this is not 100% clear from your description) it would be installed as follows, and set to 'Gravity fed mode' of operation.

N=Neutral/s
L=Permanent Live Supply
1. Not used
2. Not used
3. Hot water on (NO) = The live supply to the boiler
4. Heating on (NO) = The live supply to the central heating pump

On the other hand, if the system is fully pumped, ie both the hot water and heating are fed via the same pump, then you will still need a Dual Channel Hive to control the system, but you will have to have the plumbing altered by the addition of a motorised valve / valves to control the water flow to the radiators and hot water cylinder as dictated by the Hive.

 

[Peter Slevin]

Hi Stem, thanks for the reply, yes you are spot on my system is pumped heating and gravity fed hot water, I got the instruction from the screwfix forum where someone else had a similar setup.
My understand was that the duel channel was only for a system whereby the 2 channels were split hot water and heating whereas mine isn't. I dont mind not being able to use the boiler for hot water during the summer as I use the immersion heater to take care of that, all I wanted was to replace current RWB7 with something that was more controllable rather than the house other heating due to the lack of an internal thermostat. As mentioned the boiler is pre pumped and pre wired so the time clock just completes the circuit. I cant seem to get a definitive answer from hive either, because its oil fired and not gas they don't realy have any experience.

 

[stem]

The single channel Hive is primarily for combi boilers designed to provide control of heating only, as combi's produce instantaneous hot water on demand when the tap is opened, and therefore have no need of time control over the hot water.

If you read the Hive instructions, you will see for your installation you should have a Dual Channel Hive controlling 'hot water' and 'heating' but set to 'Gravity Mode'

Originally you had a single timeswitch only controlling both the heating and the hot water, so both are on together. But you don't have any thermostatic control. Do you have a way of stopping the heating coming on in the summer when you just want hot water? a switch that turns off the pump for example.

The Hive being a thermostat incorporates temperature control (which you didn't have before) as well as time control. If you were to fit a single channel Hive to the heating and hot water system. The hot water would not work when the actual room temperature was above that programmed into the Hive.

What you could do, but you would need to be electrically competent to do it, is to rewire the system as per my diagram below, so that the Hot Water controlled by the old RWB Programmer, and the Central Heating pump by the Hive Single Channel. The end result would be the same as using a Dual Channel Hive, in 'Gravity Mode' [except that there wouldn't be remote control of the Hot Water] When just Hot Water is required, the RWB operates just the boiler, but when Central heating is required the Hive operates the boiler and the pump.

Earths omitted for clarity

 

[Deleted member 267285]

I could be wrong, @stem should be a able to confirm, they’re the mutts nuts:

I was right about one thing

 

[Peter Slevin]

Hi Stem, many thanks for your detailed reply, there is no separate switch for the pump as the boiler is prewired and only becomes live when time programmer completes the circuit. I have contacted screwfix and arranged return of the single channel receiver and ordered a dual channel one in it's place, hive are telling me its the only one that will operate my boiler. Your suggestion is excellent to incorporate the single channel receiver and still use the RWB time switch for hot water, however I realy want to get rid of the old time switch, I'll probally go down the rout of the hive receiver controlling the immersion heater using an appropriate relay to handle the higher amps if that makes sense.

 

[stem]

I'll probably go down the route of the hive receiver controlling the immersion heater using an appropriate relay to handle the higher amps if that makes sense.

Unfortunately you can't do that either, because it is the hot water control of the Hive that controls the boiler under both hot water and heating requirements. Therefore the boiler wouldn't work when you wanted to have the heating on.

If you get a Dual Channel Hive and connect it in properly you will be able to have the boiler heat just the hot water in the summer and have heating and hot water in the winter. Which would make more sense than using an electric immersion heater, which to heat water costs about 3 times that of gas and twice the cost of using oil.

 

[Peter Slevin]

Hi, I see what your saying. This is the forum where I'd seen this https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...ng-hive-to-control-immersion-heater.18818331/
Given what you have said I don't think that even the 2 channel hive will work for me without rewiring the boiler and pump, thats because there is only 1 x 3core twin and earth going to the boiler, from the switched side of the RWB programmer this then splits out to boiler stat, Oil burner and then circulator pump. Am I correct in this assumption. I really do appreciate the time you've put in to this for me.

I forgot to say the only thermostat on the hot cylinder is for the immersion, so there would be no means of controlling the hot water temp.