How to best turn off the boiler at night

[Claudia Thompson]

I know next to nothing about boilers, radiators or heating systems. I am trying to adjust mine so that it will stop putting out the smells that it does.

Currently, if I have the boiler on at night, smells seem to come into the bedroom window from the boiler. I am guessing that it is exhaust fumes. I am not sure, but maybe it is caused by having the pressure gage set a little too low?

My question is, is there anyway to turn off the boiler so that it doesn't run all night, short of having to turn it off at the outlet?

Secondly, is it harmful to the boiler at all to turn it off at the outlet/ the On and Off Switch I mean.

 

[Madrab]

If your window is anywhere downwind of your boiler flue then you may get flue gases making their way in and that's what you can smell. You should have a timeclock/programmer/thermostat either on the boiler or separate on a wall in the hall or somewhere similar that allows you to control the boiler and when it comes on, you need to find that and get to know how to use it.

You shouldn't really have to turn the boiler off and on via its switch, it's not ideal. Electronics are notoriously sensitive to power being switched on and off at sockets all the time and the surges that it can produce.

 

[Claudia Thompson]

If your window is anywhere downwind of your boiler flue then you may get flue gases making their way in and that's what you can smell. You should have a timeclock/programmer/thermostat either on the boiler or separate on a wall in the hall or somewhere similar that allows you to control the boiler and when it comes on, you need to find that and get to know how to use it.

You shouldn't really have to turn the boiler off and on via its switch.

Rob,

Thank you, I REALLY appreciate your reply. That makes sense. But I have tried looking at the Timer thing and I cannot make heads or tails of it. Someone tried explaining it to me but I just cannot understand. Is there anywhere online or maybe a video that you could give me the address of about this?

There is a wall thermostat and also some sort of a 'Timer' dial thing on the boiler itself. I think that when I had the wall Thermostat (which I do know how to operate pretty well) on 19.00 then there is no problem with the boiler exhaust in the bedroom. I think last time I left it set on 20.5 or something like that.

I am from Texas and just never had to deal with radiators or anything like that and this is the first time I've lived on my own.

 

[Madrab]

What we need is the make and model number of your boiler/thermostat/programmer Claudia to be able to point you in the right direction.

The simplest and quickest thing is to have the thermostat set low, below room temp, so there's no chance of the boiler kicking in overnight but that does mean you need to turn it back up in the morning and wait till things heat back up.

 

[Claudia Thompson]

What we need is the make and model number of your boiler/thermostat/programmer Claudia to be able to point you in the right direction.

The simplest and quickest thing is to have the thermostat set low, below room temp, so there's no chance of the boiler kicking in overnight but that does mean you need to turn it back up in the morning and wait till things heat back up.

Worcester Boiler

Greenstar 25si pressure

G.C. No:47 311 84 N.G.

Here was what the guy from Worcester said to me in an email when I tried to explain all of this to him:

"It is difficult for us to say what you may be witnessing, but it does sound that possibly the water in the system itself is causing any smells, and the two radiators where it was most noticeable may have a small leak on or between them."

But, regardless of what he said to me, it sure has helped me by reducing the pressure.



If you believe the issue is anything to do with the pressure being the level it is, you can bleed a radiator of water until this pressure drops, but we would not advise this as the boiler would not run correctly or efficiently.

 

[Claudia Thompson]

By the way, I would give you guys a 'Thank you' but I don't see any thank you button on here

 

[Claudia Thompson]

If your window is anywhere downwind of your boiler flue then you may get flue gases making their way in and that's what you can smell. You should have a timeclock/programmer/thermostat either on the boiler or separate on a wall in the hall or somewhere similar that allows you to control the boiler and when it comes on, you need to find that and get to know how to use it.

You shouldn't really have to turn the boiler off and on via its switch, it's not ideal. Electronics are notoriously sensitive to power being switched on and off at sockets all the time and the surges that it can produce.

Well I do hope I've got this right. I watched a short video on YouTube on how to work the timeclock on a Boiler.

I wake up at 6:00AM in the morning and I go to bed at 10:00PM at night. And I want the heat to be turned off all night.

And so I put the timer on the little clock symbol and not on the 'On' (which is confusing), and then I have got all the little switches flipped Outwards from the 6 all the way around to the 22. And the rest of the switches from 22 to 6 are turned Inwards. And I have got the wall thermostar turned to 20.5 because that is what seems most comfortable to me.

One thing I don't understand though is... how is this any different from switching the On/Off button at the outlet every night, except that it is doing it for me automatically?

Unless it's kind of like a computer, where you turn it off at the outlet verses setting it on 'Power Save' or 'Screen Saver' at night. Or just 'putting your computer to sleep'. And you wouldn't want to be turning your computer off at the switch all the time.

 

[D_Hailsham]

By the way, I would give you guys a 'Thank you' but I don't see any thank you button on here

The Thanks button is immediately below the Multi-quote button in bottom right corner of each post. The cursor has to be within the post to see the button.

Have you cleaned inside the fins at the back of each radiator? A lot of dust etc can collect there?

 

[Claudia Thompson]

The Thanks button is immediately below the Multi-quote button in bottom right corner of each post. The cursor has to be within the post to see the button.

Have you cleaned inside the fins at the back of each radiator? A lot of dust etc can collect there?

Yes I did do that to the living room and bathroom radiators, but not the bedroom one yet. That one isn't so bad as the other two. I had bought this long lint cleanher brush from Amazon for my clothes dryer and discovered that the brush part of it fits right into the back things of the radiators so that I can push the lint brush through each one of the slots and in between then and clean the dust all out of them. It was that way when I moved in and my Landlord said he never cleans his out. But anyway that very helpful

 

[heatservice]

Hi, dont know if your aware of this but if you eco green light is not illuminated then your preheat is switched on which means your boiler will fire up for a short period every 30 minutes or so even when there is no demand for CH or HW . System pressure should be around 1.2 bar when cold and might rise a little when the heating has been one for a while. If you think products of combustion are entering you property through your windows then get it checked by a GSR engineer, it might need a flue plume kit fitted to take the flue gasses further away. I would also recommend you have a co detector fitted if you haven't already got one.

 

[Claudia Thompson]

Hi, dont know if your aware of this but if you eco green light is not illuminated then your preheat is switched on which means your boiler will fire up for a short period every 30 minutes or so even when there is no demand for CH or HW . System pressure should be around 1.2 bar when cold and might rise a little when the heating has been one for a while. If you think products of combustion are entering you property through your windows then get it checked by a GSR engineer, it might need a flue plume kit fitted to take the flue gasses further away. I would also recommend you have a co detector fitted if you haven't already got one.

Hello heat service,

Thanks so much, it seems that if I could get them to do this it would be great. I noticed that the exhaust is right around the window and I have wondered why they don't have it further away from the house. So I am going to ask the Landlord about this then.

 

[Claudia Thompson]

Well as it turns out the little switch things on the timer dial on mine have to be pointed inward rather than outward to work and make it come on rather than the other way around as it said on the video that I watched.

 

[shambolic]

Ps if fumes are coming back into your property the boiler is At Risk and should be turned off and inspected to see if it’s fitted correctly.

 

[Claudia Thompson]

Ps if fumes are coming back into your property the boiler is At Risk and should be turned off and inspected to see if it’s fitted correctly.

Okay, thanks so much, maybe if I could at least get them to worry about the boiler since it would cost them money if it went out, then I could also possibly get them to put in the boiler flue redirect kit while they are at it, to help me out as well.

 

[dilalio]

Only a Gas Safe engineer referencing the boiler MI’s can determine if there are any issues with the install.