Heating System

Leraf

Hi, I had a question about my heating system. The gas boiler has a setting for heat or water but when I put it on for water only, the rads heat up. There is no way for me to only heat up water. Anyone come across this before?

coylemj

What happens when you set it to 'heat'? It sounds like a dual-zone system, is that what you were lead to believe you have?

Worst case, turn off the rads individually but in a dual-zone system that won't cause the water to be heated, the hot water will just go around the circuit but bypass the rads.

Leraf

coylemj wrote: »

What happens when you set it to 'heat'? It sounds like a dual-zone system, is that what you were lead to believe you have?

Worst case, turn off the rads individually but in a dual-zone system that won't cause the water to be heated, the hot water will just go around the circuit but bypass the rads.

When i put the heat on i get heat, when i put the water on i get heat. My mam has the same system, not sure if its a dual zone one like you mention, her one does what it should, press water it heats water, press heating you get hot rads. Mine only does heat the rads it seems so in the summer when its warm and you set it for only water you get hot rads which is not ideal lol

NickNickleby

in my setup, there's :

Control unit in the hall. This is where I program the heating and also can press "hot water" or "heating" independently.

In the airing cupboard :
hot tank connected to the central heating pipes.
Electrically controlled valve which responds to the commands from the hall, to divert the hot water from the central into the hot tank coil, thus heating the water in the tank - or it diverts the water to the rads, and if I'm feeling mad, it can divert water to both simultaneously.

so it all does what it says on the tin.

Now compare this to my mother's setup.
Control unit in kitchen
no electrically controlled valve in airing cupboard.

Whatever she presses, she gets both hot water and hot rads. So its a bad design. I should say that the control unit has little lights on it, which claim either the heating or hot water are on. Rubbish, lazy installation.

2011

^^^^^ This is typical of many set ups.

If I had the OP's set up I would get a plumber to install 2 zone valves. I would then wire from a 2 channel time clock as follows:

Channel 1 to downstairs stat (in a central location) and from this to the zone valve for the radiators.

Channel 2 to hot water tank stat and from this to the zone valve for domestic hot water.

The auxiliary wiring on the zone valves (often grey and orange) connected in parallel would be used to fire the boiler. That way the boiler will only come on when one or more zone valves is open (so when the stats are satisfied the boiler switches off).

Obviously more zones would be better but depending on the plumbing can be difficult to retrofit.

Bruthal

Leraf wrote: »

Hi, I had a question about my heating system. The gas boiler has a setting for heat or water but when I put it on for water only, the rads heat up. There is no way for me to only heat up water. Anyone come across this before?

Yes my house was like that on the gas heating. There was a motorized valve on the rads circuit but it never closed properly. So when I decided to fit a boiler stove and link it to the gas system, I added a new motorized valve to the cylinder, and another to replace the faulty rads one. And connect their Aux contacts to the gas boiler control loop.

Leraf

Thank you all for your comments, you have been a great help, i do appreciate it