First off... thanks for helping me out and appreciating I know absolutely
nothing about my system. This coupled together with the nice lady who
offered to take her trolley back with hers at Asda today reminds me how many
genuinely decent people there are out in this sometimes weird world.

To answer your questions as best I can... here goes...

1) Can't actually see my boiler, its all hidden in the wall behind the fire
on my chimney breast. I think to get to see all of this would mean some
deconstruction of the fire on the front?

2) Whenever the heating is on, the hot water is on. There is no option on
the programmer to have heating on without it.

3) (hangs head in shame) I don't know where my pump is either, although I
assume there is one somewhere. Just when I moved in I had the heating on for
a while to test it and the pump screamed for a while, but it was in the
morning and it stopped after 5 mins before I woke up to find it.

4) I am not aware of any zone valves.

I basically think its the oldest, simplest form of CH/HW there is. Its
reliable though, keeps the house at whatever temperature I ask, and makes
lots of nice hot water for my new power shower, bless it.

Is this any use at all?

Thanks again for your continued interest, if you're anywhere near Rotherham
I owe you a pint.

Phil


"Christian McArdle" wrote in message
t...
so how easy are these things to fit then? grin

It could be anything from extremely simple to very complicated, depending
on
what you have installed.

The following information should help in determining what your current
system is. We already know it is a back boiler.

1. How many pipes come out of the boiler? How large are they?

2. Does your programmer allow you select the heating, but have the water
turned off, or are you forced to have the water on? (Or you can turn the
hot
water off, but it has no effect, the hot water cylinder is heated anyway).

3. Can you hear/feel the pump operating when the heating is off, but the
hot
water is turned on?

4. Are there any zone valves? These are large valve, that look like a
stopcock, except the handle has been replaced by a plastic box about 8cm x
8cm x 6cm which a flex trailing out. We need to know how many such valves
you can find, where they are installed, and how much pipes come out of
them.

Christian.