Hi,
Our heating system has completely stopped working, and my trouble shooting skills haven’t been able to figure out the problem. Please could you read this post and see if you know what the problem might be as this winter is FREEZING….
Why I’m not calling a plumber….
I recently moved in with my elderly father in law at his house, as I’d just lost my job and had time to help him out with his house while I was looking for work.
When I arrived the situation was a lot worse than I originally thought, he hadn’t been paying his bills, and hasn’t had the heating on for over two years and has been ill alot. I’ve emptied my savings to help with the bills so now between us we don’t have two pennies to rub together and can’t afford a plumber to look at his heating system.
I’ve probably gone into too much detail in this post, but thought it best to give too much rather than too little. Hopefully a kind soul out there might be able to guide me on my next step. I know I should get an expert in to look at it but it really isn’t an option.
First of all I’ll explain the layout…
Downstairs in the kitchen there is a Stelrad RS40 Gas Boiler with a Randall 102 timer. There is a Honeywell thermostat on the wall in the entranceway which still “clicks” when its moved.
Upstairs there is also an immersion heater, central heating pump and a Honeywell Sundial Y Plan 3 position diverter valve.
There is also a large water tank in the loft (for the hot water) and a smaller tank for the heating.
Getting to the problem….
All the radiators were stone cold at first. The heating hadn’t been on for two years and all the radiators were turned off. He had been having hot water for the taps.
First thing I did was turn on all the radiators, bleed them while they were still cold, and then turned the Randall 102 timer setting to “Water and Heating”. I then turned the timer to ON and the boiler didn’t fire.
I turned it to “heating only” and turned it on and it did fire. So thinking that the timer maybe faulty, I checked for the common live wire going in, looked up the timers wiring diagram and fed a live wire directly onto the “Heating” slot – put the timer cover back on and the boiler fired up. So now I know the timer is faulty, but I’ve bypassed that for now and can replace later on.
So the boilers fired up… The upstairs radiators then started to slowly heat up (but never got hot), but the downstairs radiators were stone cold.
After about 15mins the boiler shut off, and flicking the timer off and on didn’t help. I thought it might need a little while to get going and left the timer “ON” permanently and the live wire connected to the heating wire. The boiler kept on coming on for 15mins, shut down and then fire back up around an hour later.
After 2 days of this the upstairs radiators were “warm” but downstairs were still stone cold. After the Boiler shut down again I felt the water pipe going into the boiler and it was red hot, the outgoing water pipe was also red hot.
My thinking to this point is that the boiler itself is working fine, however it is shutting off because the water coming back in is red hot and its stopping itself from overheating.
My first thought was the pump – it’s a Myson Unit 3. I read up online and then undid the screw in the middle, black water started dripping out and after turning it clockwise and anti-clockwise for a while screwed the cap back on tight. The next time the boiler fired the upstairs radiators went red hot. In that time I’d also read there was a speed switch underneath that I hadn’t noticed so I turned it up to speed 2 and tried again. This time all the radiators upstairs were red hot still, and one of the pipes leading to a downstairs radiator started to feel luke warm, but that radiator and all of downstairs remained completely cold. The boiler then shut down again, but had stayed on for abit longer.
So I thought Blockage…
I then put a piece of wood across the small tank in the attic and tied up the ballcock so it wouldn’t fill up. I then ran a hose from the lowest radiator and opened the “bleeding valve” in the uppermost radiator and drained the whole system.
Once it had stopped I went around and bled each radiator to make certain that all the water had drained – two rads were still giving water so I drained them manually and the water was filthy black and full of sediment.
I filled the system and kept an eye on the two radiators and they filled up straight away - so I think the blockage has gone there - I bled each radiator in the house so there were no airlocks.
Once it was filled I went back to the two radiators and drained them (from the valve that is on the pipe underneath) and more black water came out. I went around the house and bled them all again so there were no air blocks. I felt that this should have sorted out those two radiators and didn’t see the point in draining the whole system again – after all there are three other radiators that drain and fill fine and they are still stone cold.
Turned the system back on and now the upstairs radiators are just “warm” again! They are no longer hot and the pump is still set to speed 2. I know I need to put cleanser in and inhibitor – however its about £23 and I can foresee the system getting drained again to replace something so was hoping to avoid paying twice, and get it working on normal water first before I do that.
The boiler still keeps on cutting off and I have taken one step forward and two steps back. My thoughts are this…
The gas boiler downstairs is working fine, it is heating the water that goes through it.
The timer has packed in but is not an immediate problem and is being bypassed.
The central heating pump is “humming” and I can feel it moving when its on (it does get RED hot, slightly hotter than the pipes above and below it) so I’m unsure if it’s faulty but it doesn’t appear so.
The Honeywell Sundial Y Plan could be faulty – however I don’t know how to check if it’s still working or not.
The thermostat on the wall downstairs is an unknown quantity – I don’t even know how to test if it works on not (any advice on this would be appreciated).
I know something is causing the boiler to shut down before the downstairs radiators even warm up.
I know something is causing the heat to flow upstairs but not go downstairs.
I’m thinking that my next step should be cleanser - to see if there is still a blockage, but I cant see how it is blocking heat to all 5 radiators downstairs so I’m hesitant to do it (I know its only £10 but it could go towards a new heat pump or something else). But I am hoping someone could rule out if the Y Plan diverter valve could be causing any of these problems, as the pump and boiler “seem” to operate fine, and the system has been drained and appears to be clear. Does anyone know how I can test to see if it’s faulty?
Any ideas, thoughts, suspicions, or guesses on what to try next would be greatly appreciated.
Once again If anyone can help then please, please post a reply – I’ve got a thousand and one repairs to do to his house and it’s so hard to stay motivated when it’s freezing cold. If I can temporarily get the heating on and get us through the winter then I can hopefully pay for a new system to be installed next year once all his bills are under control.
Oh, and I’ve tried opening the other valves on all the radiators in case it was a balancing problem but still none of the radiators get hot so I ruled that out too.
Thank you once again for your time and help and thoughts.
Best Regards
Dean
Our heating system has completely stopped working, and my trouble shooting skills haven’t been able to figure out the problem. Please could you read this post and see if you know what the problem might be as this winter is FREEZING….
Why I’m not calling a plumber….
I recently moved in with my elderly father in law at his house, as I’d just lost my job and had time to help him out with his house while I was looking for work.
When I arrived the situation was a lot worse than I originally thought, he hadn’t been paying his bills, and hasn’t had the heating on for over two years and has been ill alot. I’ve emptied my savings to help with the bills so now between us we don’t have two pennies to rub together and can’t afford a plumber to look at his heating system.
I’ve probably gone into too much detail in this post, but thought it best to give too much rather than too little. Hopefully a kind soul out there might be able to guide me on my next step. I know I should get an expert in to look at it but it really isn’t an option.
First of all I’ll explain the layout…
Downstairs in the kitchen there is a Stelrad RS40 Gas Boiler with a Randall 102 timer. There is a Honeywell thermostat on the wall in the entranceway which still “clicks” when its moved.
Upstairs there is also an immersion heater, central heating pump and a Honeywell Sundial Y Plan 3 position diverter valve.
There is also a large water tank in the loft (for the hot water) and a smaller tank for the heating.
Getting to the problem….
All the radiators were stone cold at first. The heating hadn’t been on for two years and all the radiators were turned off. He had been having hot water for the taps.
First thing I did was turn on all the radiators, bleed them while they were still cold, and then turned the Randall 102 timer setting to “Water and Heating”. I then turned the timer to ON and the boiler didn’t fire.
I turned it to “heating only” and turned it on and it did fire. So thinking that the timer maybe faulty, I checked for the common live wire going in, looked up the timers wiring diagram and fed a live wire directly onto the “Heating” slot – put the timer cover back on and the boiler fired up. So now I know the timer is faulty, but I’ve bypassed that for now and can replace later on.
So the boilers fired up… The upstairs radiators then started to slowly heat up (but never got hot), but the downstairs radiators were stone cold.
After about 15mins the boiler shut off, and flicking the timer off and on didn’t help. I thought it might need a little while to get going and left the timer “ON” permanently and the live wire connected to the heating wire. The boiler kept on coming on for 15mins, shut down and then fire back up around an hour later.
After 2 days of this the upstairs radiators were “warm” but downstairs were still stone cold. After the Boiler shut down again I felt the water pipe going into the boiler and it was red hot, the outgoing water pipe was also red hot.
My thinking to this point is that the boiler itself is working fine, however it is shutting off because the water coming back in is red hot and its stopping itself from overheating.
My first thought was the pump – it’s a Myson Unit 3. I read up online and then undid the screw in the middle, black water started dripping out and after turning it clockwise and anti-clockwise for a while screwed the cap back on tight. The next time the boiler fired the upstairs radiators went red hot. In that time I’d also read there was a speed switch underneath that I hadn’t noticed so I turned it up to speed 2 and tried again. This time all the radiators upstairs were red hot still, and one of the pipes leading to a downstairs radiator started to feel luke warm, but that radiator and all of downstairs remained completely cold. The boiler then shut down again, but had stayed on for abit longer.
So I thought Blockage…
I then put a piece of wood across the small tank in the attic and tied up the ballcock so it wouldn’t fill up. I then ran a hose from the lowest radiator and opened the “bleeding valve” in the uppermost radiator and drained the whole system.
Once it had stopped I went around and bled each radiator to make certain that all the water had drained – two rads were still giving water so I drained them manually and the water was filthy black and full of sediment.
I filled the system and kept an eye on the two radiators and they filled up straight away - so I think the blockage has gone there - I bled each radiator in the house so there were no airlocks.
Once it was filled I went back to the two radiators and drained them (from the valve that is on the pipe underneath) and more black water came out. I went around the house and bled them all again so there were no air blocks. I felt that this should have sorted out those two radiators and didn’t see the point in draining the whole system again – after all there are three other radiators that drain and fill fine and they are still stone cold.
Turned the system back on and now the upstairs radiators are just “warm” again! They are no longer hot and the pump is still set to speed 2. I know I need to put cleanser in and inhibitor – however its about £23 and I can foresee the system getting drained again to replace something so was hoping to avoid paying twice, and get it working on normal water first before I do that.
The boiler still keeps on cutting off and I have taken one step forward and two steps back. My thoughts are this…
The gas boiler downstairs is working fine, it is heating the water that goes through it.
The timer has packed in but is not an immediate problem and is being bypassed.
The central heating pump is “humming” and I can feel it moving when its on (it does get RED hot, slightly hotter than the pipes above and below it) so I’m unsure if it’s faulty but it doesn’t appear so.
The Honeywell Sundial Y Plan could be faulty – however I don’t know how to check if it’s still working or not.
The thermostat on the wall downstairs is an unknown quantity – I don’t even know how to test if it works on not (any advice on this would be appreciated).
I know something is causing the boiler to shut down before the downstairs radiators even warm up.
I know something is causing the heat to flow upstairs but not go downstairs.
I’m thinking that my next step should be cleanser - to see if there is still a blockage, but I cant see how it is blocking heat to all 5 radiators downstairs so I’m hesitant to do it (I know its only £10 but it could go towards a new heat pump or something else). But I am hoping someone could rule out if the Y Plan diverter valve could be causing any of these problems, as the pump and boiler “seem” to operate fine, and the system has been drained and appears to be clear. Does anyone know how I can test to see if it’s faulty?
Any ideas, thoughts, suspicions, or guesses on what to try next would be greatly appreciated.
Once again If anyone can help then please, please post a reply – I’ve got a thousand and one repairs to do to his house and it’s so hard to stay motivated when it’s freezing cold. If I can temporarily get the heating on and get us through the winter then I can hopefully pay for a new system to be installed next year once all his bills are under control.
Oh, and I’ve tried opening the other valves on all the radiators in case it was a balancing problem but still none of the radiators get hot so I ruled that out too.
Thank you once again for your time and help and thoughts.
Best Regards
Dean
