Central heating needs to be on for hot water

nads

Hi,

Hope someone can help me here.
Let me explain my setup - please excuse my non-technical terms.

1 bed apartment, central hearing boiler in sitting room area(Digital Panel) and an emmersion boiler(lagged jacket one with panel - On/Off Sink/Bath) in little closet in the hall.

~2 years ago on signing lease landlord said that it's an efficient apartment in fact probably best leaving emmersion at Sink On the whole time, and turn on central heating in the 4 months that you'd need it.

This went alright in the first year there, hot taps gave hot water after a few seconds of running it, and shower too(not an electric shower, just pipe from bath hot tap).

Then ~February '08 we duly stopped using the central heating until late September '08, and when we reprised the use of the central heating we discovered the emmersion boiler was stone cold in the closet - so now we need the central heating on now for hot water for washing hands/showers.

This isn't an issue now since central heating is on the whole time pretty much in cold months, but what's the deal come Feb' 09 when we just want to run off the emmersion i.e. heaters not needed?

Thanks, sorry for the essay, searched the forums too beforehand but was unlucky in finding similar problem, cheers

N

yop

So you dont have hot water for the shower until the heating is on?
You have hot water in the sink with the heating on or if you put on the immersion?

But when you dont put on the heating you dont have hot water in the shower?

That makes sense then if I am understanding you correctly.

What you need to do is switch the immersion to bath/sink and turn it on to get hot water for the shower when the heating is not running or does that answer sound way to simple?

mullingar

There are 2 ways the water is heated in the tank, either via the emmersion (an electric heating element) or via your central heating (there is a mini-radiator inside your tank) so if one (or both) is on you will have hot water.

If you have your emmersion switch ON and set to SINK and your water is still cold (with heating off) then your element is more than likely blown. These are quite cheap and can be bought in any decent hardware store.

Do you have in your apartment a little white box with an orange light attached to a pipe? If so you have zoned heating which you can seperate where your central heating heats. If this light is off then your central heating will only heat the water, if its ON it will heat both radiators & water

nads

Hi! Thanks for the swift replies.
I'm not sure about an orange light attached to a pipe, there's an orange light on the Siemens Central Heating panel which resultantly heats rads and hot water taps.

In responce to 1st replier. I have the Sink option at On the whole time, when central heating isn't on - there's no hot water anywhere. This is in contrast to the past 1 and half where sink adquetly heated hot taps.

My Dad reckoned the element was shot in the immersion alright but we didn't know the setup with central heating, until the 2nd reply, thanks. I'll get onto the landlord and get a new element, thanks a lot again

N

mullingar

Just to add to my post,

the heating element inside your tank is a dual heating element , one large (bath) and one small (sink).
Try the bath option to see if it heats the water. If it does then yes your sink element is dead, if you still have no hot water also check fuse box, failing that, get landlord to fix.

nads

hi yeah, from what i remembered i think the bath element worked, should have included that, but what put me off i think back then there was flaky heating from the sink element but i think it's totoally shot now, thanks again

N