kiich wrote:

How many pipes connect to this valve? (two or three would be the common
options).


kiichi this turned out to be 3

from the valve:
1 pipe connected to another pipe which connects to the water pump,
boiler and cylinder
1 pipe connected to the cylinder directly (labled hot water port B)
1 pipe going down to the floor labled central heating port A

the valve is SUNVIC SD 1752 and has a label titled UNISHARE.

Looks a bit like?:

http://www.sunvic.co.uk/3pmv.html

I could not find the exact model number of yours on the site, and hence
can't tell if yours is a mid position valve or just a diverter. The
current one seems to be mid position.

how do i know that this is 2 or 3 port valve though?

Count the pipes! - From your description yours is a 3 port. It has one
pipe in and two out. (A 2 port valve is just like a motorised tap - it
can be on or off. The three port can not shut off the flow of water,
only change its path).

i haven't opened up the plastic case yet - because i was scared it
might cause damage or water might come out - should i worry about these
things?

No - they are in two parts. The brass bit at the bottom is the wet part.
It will usually have a small spindle that sticks out of it to control
the position of the tap elements inside it. The box sat on top contains
a motor and some control electronics. The motor turns the tap.

It is not uncommon for motors to fail, or for the taps to seize. You can
usually remove the motor completely and see if you can turn the tap
spindle manually (perhaps with a pair of pliers - it should not take
much force to turn). You may find that if it is seized, it may only be
temporarily - manually turning it may fix the problem.

Have a look at your hot water cylinder; how many pipes do you see in and
out?


kiichi
to the cylinder , there are 4 pipes - can someone tell me what each
might be doing??

1 pipe from the ceiling to the top of cylinder

HW out to the taps in the house...

1 pipe from the ceiling to the bottom of the cylinder

Cold water into the cylinder from a cold water cistern in the loft...

1 pipe from valve

Hot water from boiler in (via 3 port valve)...

1 pipe from boiler

Return pipe to boiler

the cylinder says it is a indirect cylinder

As we suspected then ;-)

Is this timer connected to the boiler? Does your cylinder have a
immersion heater? (the top of which would normally be visible sticking out the cylinder - it would also have to have wires connecting to it).


kiichi
the 7 day immersion heater timer was indeed connected to the top of
cylinder - so i think i can say that this is for the backup only right?
and can have it set to "PERMANENTLY OFF" setting??

So there is no connection between the CH programmer and the time switch
like you thought the other day then?

If so, good - that makes it simple. It looks like this is an ordinary
immersion heater which you can ignore unless your boiler dies of you
feel guilty about having such small electricity bills ;-)

things i noticed:

the pipe coming out of the valve out of the "hot water" port is HOT
the pipe coming out of the valve out of the "central heating" port is
warm/cold as it gets to the floor

That kind of indicates to me that there is no hot water going towards
the radiators, right?

Yup, spot on.

Or does the pipes for CH not get that hot??

Nope, it should get as hot as the pipe going into the valve (or the one
going currently to the cylinder)

as i said i havent opened up the valve (the white plastic on the valve)
because i was too scared to do it myself and cause damage but i can
do it myself right without getting a plumber in?

Yup, you can do it yourself.

all power to the valve, boiler and everything else in the airing
cupboard is OFF before i do this.

Yup - it is usually all fed from the boiler. So if you turn that off at
the wall the rest will be off as well. Note that this does not apply to
the immersion heater which will typically be independent.


--
Cheers,

John.

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