Sticky Honeywell 3 port valve - what does "manual"

[Martino]

Hi,
I've got a Honeywell 3 port valve with classic "sticky" symptoms with a bias in favour of the hot water

i) if hot water on and put heating on, heating takes an age to warm up, and will only get as far as tepid on the downstairs rads
ii) if hot water only recently gone off and put heating on, takes an age to warm up (same as above)
iii) if both on together, once water cuts out (as hot enough) takes a while for heating to get up to speed.
iv) if heating on and water switched on, downstairs rads lose heat almost immediately, upstairs rads lose it too but not as quick

You get the picture.

Been like it for a while. In the past, a bit of wiggling backwards and forwards (AUTO to MAN) of the lever on the valve seemed to improve it for a while. Sometimes the lever moved freely, sometimes with resistance. Can't stay I studied it enough to know what was on or doing what when it moved freely or with resistance, just aware that it was different sometimes.

Now, all the lever wiggling in the world doesn't make any difference - whether I like it or not, hot water is king and central heating comes a poor second.

But can someone tell me what he MAN position actually does? Does it behave according to what is supposed to be on? Force the valve into a specific position? ?????

Any advice (in laymans total plumbing idiot terms) gratefully received.

Thanks
Martino

 

[mogget]

On the Honeywell 3-port valve (v4073), the manual lever basically moves it to the mid position. If the electric is switched off and the lever released, it should move by spring-power to the hot water position.

 

[Martino]

Thanks Mogget.

Have now decided enough is enough and have contacted "my man" to replace it. Looks like I should get warmer as from early next week.

I've had an expensive 2008 with the heating - new pump, new PCB and fan assembly in boiler, power flush.... and now this new valve to come. I'm seriously contemplating moving to electric radiators and using the immersion heater and decommissioning/uninstalling the gas central heating system. I don't use gas for cooking and a maintenance free heating system sounds very tempting... I bet this is a subject that could trigger lots of debate!!!

 

[mogget]

I think the debate could be endless

The important thing is to balance the fuel costs against the cost of installation, maintenance and so forth. Horses for courses!

It does sound though like you'll have done all the expensive bits once the valve is done - so hopefully (touch wood) you'll be ok for a while now

 

[Martino]

"It does sound though like you'll have done all the expensive bits"

Tell me about it. As the boiler is a 20 year old Ideal Elan, spare parts aren't cheap and plentiful. Twice we had the "do we fix it or do we replace it?" debate but each time went for the "fix it is quicker" option even if it felt like good money going after bad. The new boiler quotes I got from British Gas and a local firm helped with those decisions (would you believe local firm dearer than BG)

As well as the valve, I've got a balancing problem, which I've discovered from this forum exists because when the power flush was done at the end of June, the balancing wasn't done properly. The boss of the power flush firm is due to ring me tomorrow to arrange for his man to come and do the job properly this time. It's only as it's been so cold and we've had the heating on so much that the lack of balancing became obvious - up until the cold snap we tend to just stick the heating on for the odd hour so a tepid rad at the end of the system isn't so obvious. But now I've noticed that I've checked the others and theres a clear heat range as you move away from the pump - from scalding to very hot to hot to very warm to tepid.

That's one of the reasons this forum is so good. Unfortunately there are a lot of cowboys in the plumbing/heating trade, and it's good to see the other side of it on here with traders willing to share their experience free of charge. Kinda restores your faith in human nature.