Ideal Icos HE12 - central heating has stopped working

[sadboilerowner]

Hi all,

Wonder if you could give me a bit of advice? I moved house last October and since then the water, heating, timers etc have been working just fine. In the last few days the central heating has stopped coming on when it's supposed to, and I can't get it working. The hot water seems fine.

There's an Ideal Icos HE12 boiler in the kitchen, a Myson timer thing below it, a thermostat in the hall, and some sort of water tank in a cupboard upstairs. For the last few months I've had the hot water and the upstair water tank thing turned on 24/7 (is that a good idea, by the way?), and the heating programmed to come on twice a day.

Here are some pictures: http://imgur.com/a/P4cJL

So what's happening now - the boiler is displaying status 0 all the time - regardless of what I do to the Myson thing, or the thermostat, or the water tank etc. I've tried turning the boiler on and off, I've tried turning it off at the mains, I've pressed the reset button repeatedly, held it down, etc. At one point today I did manage to get the boiler to fire-up and it displayed status C, but it stopped after a while and I haven't been able to get it to do it again as I'm not sure what triggered it.

I'm going to call the plumbing company who installed the thing but before I do is there anything else I can try, and could you please give me an idea of how much it might cost to have it repaired/serviced etc.

Thank you!

 

[TCCHeating]

The boiler is probably not to blame, 0 means no demand. Turn on the heating and check you have a switch live back to the boiler. (There is a removeable plug under the boiler) if there is a switch live to the boiler. Then there is a boiler fault. if you have no switch live to the boiler it could be the programmer, the thermostat, or the motorised valve. You will need to get a heating engineer in to fault find and diagnose the problem for you. Worst case if its the motorised valve your probably looking at around 150-250 quid, depending on weather the head can be changed or the full valve needs replacing.

From looking at your pics you may be using your immersion heater to heat your cylinder. (There is a switch in your cylinder cupboard that appears to be on. Bit blurry so couldnt make out the writing on it but I suspect it's the immersion heater) This should be used as a backup only as it's very expensive compared to using the boiler to heat it up.

 

[Whitespirit66]

As above, using my magnifying gizzmo on PC, can make out the words 'water heater' on that switch next to cylinder.

When you say hot water is left on 24/7, looks like the electric immersion is on permanently. This is a very expensive way of heating your hw. The wall switch needs to be off, and run the heating of hw via the programmer below boiler. The electric immersion is only really for backup use when the boiler breaks down - particularly useful as you are the proud owner of an Icos.

If you turn off the water heater wall swicth next to cylinder and turn on hw via programmer, does the boiler and pump come on? When you turn on ch, does the pump run?

 

[sadboilerowner]

Thanks a lot for the replies guys...

TCC Heating - thanks for advice and the idea about potential cost. The stuff you said about a live switch all went way over my head but thanks anyway for your help. Also thanks for the tip on the heating tank thing - I've had that switched on 24 hours a day since October!

Whitespirit - Thanks also for telling me about the immersion heater - egg on my face now... If I turn that switch off but leave the boiler HW set to on 24/7 would that be okay? I hate having to wait for the water to get hot when I only want to wash my hands.

So - next thing to check is if I turn the cupboard heater tank off but leave the boiler on and run a hot tap? Will check and update in the morning.

Thanks guys.

 

[Whitespirit66]

Whitespirit - Thanks also for telling me about the immersion heater - egg on my face now... If I turn that switch off but leave the boiler HW set to on 24/7 would that be okay? I hate having to wait for the water to get hot when I only want to wash my hands.

So - next thing to check is if I turn the cupboard heater tank off but leave the boiler on and run a hot tap? Will check and update in the morning.

Thanks guys.

There seems to be some confusion over how your system works. You have stored hot water, so you need to get the boiler to heat the water stored in the cylinder poss once or more times per day - dependant on the number of people in house, demand, showers, etc, etc. Once heated to the recommended temp (55 to 60 deg. C), the insulated tank will store the heated water to be drawn off as required. For eg. if only 1 or 2 people in house, maybe 60 to 90 mins once a day is all the boiler will need to be on for heating hot water.

Are you saying that you boiler does actually work? You say that ch doesn't work, but hw does. Still not sure if the hw is only heated by the elec element, or if you have ever managed to get the boiler/pump to do anything.

 

[sadboilerowner]

Thanks again whitespirit for helping me understand.

Okay, so today I turned the heating tank thing upstairs OFF.

Then later in the day I ran the hot water tap for ages - the water stayed hot, and after a while the boiler fired up and (presumably) replenished the stored hot water that I'd used up. The water was not warm - it was properly hot hot hot.

However, no matter what I press or twiddle or turn on and off, the heating does nothing.

 

[Whitespirit66]

OK, sounds like your boiler is functioning and all controls concerned with hw are operating correctly.

If after turning on the ch on the programmer and making sure the thermostat in hall is turned up heating not working, sounds like a programmer, thermostat or more often motorised valve fault - as TCCHeating suggested.

Sounds like you need to get a heating engineer in to diagnose and fix. Also, keep the water heater switch off for the elec. immersion heater and keep heating the hw with the boiler. Gas is much cheaper than heating water with electricity. Just keep the immersion for backup when boiler broken.