DIYbanter - Boiler firing up at random. Please assist

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Boiler firing up at random. Please assist

Hi there. I have a Baxi Solo boiler connected to a Honeywell timer
control system. The control system consists of a ST699 time
controller, a T6360B Room Thermostat, a L641A Cylinder Thermostat and
a V4073A Motorised Mid-position valve. The entire system is installed
about 7-8 years I believe.

Right. The problem I have is that the boiler is firing up randomly
when it shouldn't be on. The timer says no, but the boiler fires up,
stays on sometimes a few seconds and sometimes an hour or two, then
shuts down again. Sometimes it will then come on again within seconds
or a few minutes. I've replaced the room thermostat and the time
controller to no avail. At one point the heating portion wouldn't work
at all but setting the lever on the mid-position valve to manual
enabled the heating when the hot water was due to be on. Now the lever
on that keeps shifting itself back towards the auto position, not sure
if this is anything to do with it.

This is becoming a real pain as the boiler is in a cupboard in the
bedroom and is very annoying if it comes on at 3 in the morning. It
generally is fine when the timer says it should be on, and I can get
it to work on demand, but it's the randomly coming on at other times
bit that is the issue.

Any thoughts on this? Please? I'll be your bestest buddy if someone
can help me with this. I don't want to call a heating engineer yet as
the expense with not knowing quite what is wrong is worrying, when I
mentioned this at the service a few weeks ago they didn't know what it
could be and I generally trust that company.

Boiler firing up at random. Please assist

On Mar 1, 4:52 pm, "Roger Mills" wrote:
In an earlier contribution to this discussion,

wrote:
Hi there. I have a Baxi Solo boiler connected to a Honeywell timer
control system. The control system consists of a ST699 time
controller, a T6360B Room Thermostat, a L641A Cylinder Thermostat and
a V4073A Motorised Mid-position valve. The entire system is installed
about 7-8 years I believe.

Right. The problem I have is that the boiler is firing up randomly
when it shouldn't be on. The timer says no, but the boiler fires up,
stays on sometimes a few seconds and sometimes an hour or two, then
shuts down again. Sometimes it will then come on again within seconds
or a few minutes. I've replaced the room thermostat and the time
controller to no avail. At one point the heating portion wouldn't work
at all but setting the lever on the mid-position valve to manual
enabled the heating when the hot water was due to be on. Now the lever
on that keeps shifting itself back towards the auto position, not sure
if this is anything to do with it.

This is becoming a real pain as the boiler is in a cupboard in the
bedroom and is very annoying if it comes on at 3 in the morning. It
generally is fine when the timer says it should be on, and I can get
it to work on demand, but it's the randomly coming on at other times
bit that is the issue.

Any thoughts on this? Please? I'll be your bestest buddy if someone
can help me with this. I don't want to call a heating engineer yet as
the expense with not knowing quite what is wrong is worrying, when I
mentioned this at the service a few weeks ago they didn't know what it
could be and I generally trust that company.

Has it ever worked properly while you've owned the house, or has it always
done this?

It's very difficult to envisage a fault which could develop on a correctly
installed Y-Plan system to make it come on when the programmer is off.
[S-Plan systems, on the other hand, *do* have possible failure modes which
can make this happen].

With Y-Plan (which is what you've got) the only thing which should be live
[1] when the programmer is off is the HW-OFF terminal on the programmer -
which is connected to terminal 2 of the cylinder stat and to the grey wire
of the mid position valve. See Y-Plan inhttp://content.honeywell.com/uk/homes/systems.htmfor a wiring diagram. Your
system should be wired exactly like this except that the pump is almost
certainly controlled by the boiler - so the boiler will have a permanent
live feed in addition to the switched live shown in the diagram, and the
pump will be connected to the boiler's pump terminals rather than just wired
in parallel with it.

If your system has *never* worked properly, I suspect that the cylinder stat
may be wired incorrectly. It's vital that it's wired exactly as per the
diagram. If any of the wires are crossed, all sorts of funny things will
happen - possibly explaining your symptoms, although I can't quite get my
head round the exact mechanism.

[1] except for the permanent live to the boiler, if it controls the pump -
but this won't make it fire.

--
Cheers,
Roger

Yes the system worked perfectly fine, absolutely no problems until
about a month and a half ago. We've been in the house 6 and a half
years and no problems before this point with anything to do with the
heating system.

I believe that is how the system is wired, but tomorrow I shall open
up what I can and check all the wiring that I can see. It was odd that
the problem I had for a short period a couple of weeks ago was solved
by moving the mid-position valve lever to manual, but now the heating
still operates when it is set to automatic (a mode the switch seems to
want to move itself back into somehow). Perhaps the valve in there is
sticky or something. Would some stray electrical wiring or an
electrical fault in the mid-position valve possibly send a fire
command through to the boiler? If not what components are capable of
doing this and I can pay specific attention to those.

I am not a plumber or electrician, but have a physics degree and can
find my way around wiring and electricals given the time, though I
have a plumber and heating engineer in the family but they live in
another country unfortunately.

Ben.

Boiler firing up at random. Please assist

On Mar 1, 9:23 pm, "Roger Mills" wrote:
In an earlier contribution to this discussion,

wrote:
On Mar 1, 4:52 pm, "Roger Mills" wrote:
In an earlier contribution to this discussion,

wrote:
Hi there. I have a Baxi Solo boiler connected to a Honeywell timer
control system. The control system consists of a ST699 time
controller, a T6360B Room Thermostat, a L641A Cylinder Thermostat
and a V4073A Motorised Mid-position valve. The entire system is
installed about 7-8 years I believe.

Right. The problem I have is that the boiler is firing up randomly
when it shouldn't be on. The timer says no, but the boiler fires up,
stays on sometimes a few seconds and sometimes an hour or two, then
shuts down again. Sometimes it will then come on again within
seconds or a few minutes. I've replaced the room thermostat and the
time controller to no avail. At one point the heating portion
wouldn't work at all but setting the lever on the mid-position
valve to manual enabled the heating when the hot water was due to
be on. Now the lever on that keeps shifting itself back towards the
auto position, not sure if this is anything to do with it.

This is becoming a real pain as the boiler is in a cupboard in the
bedroom and is very annoying if it comes on at 3 in the morning. It
generally is fine when the timer says it should be on, and I can get
it to work on demand, but it's the randomly coming on at other times
bit that is the issue.

Any thoughts on this? Please? I'll be your bestest buddy if someone
can help me with this. I don't want to call a heating engineer yet
as the expense with not knowing quite what is wrong is worrying,
when I mentioned this at the service a few weeks ago they didn't
know what it could be and I generally trust that company.

Has it ever worked properly while you've owned the house, or has it
always
done this?

It's very difficult to envisage a fault which could develop on a
correctly
installed Y-Plan system to make it come on when the programmer is
off. [S-Plan systems, on the other hand, *do* have possible failure
modes which
can make this happen].

With Y-Plan (which is what you've got) the only thing which should
be live [1] when the programmer is off is the HW-OFF terminal on the
programmer -
which is connected to terminal 2 of the cylinder stat and to the
grey wire
of the mid position valve. See Y-Plan
inhttp://content.honeywell.com/uk/homes/systems.htmfora wiring
diagram. Your system should be wired exactly like this except that
the pump is almost
certainly controlled by the boiler - so the boiler will have a
permanent
live feed in addition to the switched live shown in the diagram, and
the
pump will be connected to the boiler's pump terminals rather than
just wired
in parallel with it.

If your system has *never* worked properly, I suspect that the
cylinder stat
may be wired incorrectly. It's vital that it's wired exactly as per
the
diagram. If any of the wires are crossed, all sorts of funny things
will
happen - possibly explaining your symptoms, although I can't quite
get my
head round the exact mechanism.

[1] except for the permanent live to the boiler, if it controls the
pump -
but this won't make it fire.

--
Cheers,
Roger

Yes the system worked perfectly fine, absolutely no problems until
about a month and a half ago. We've been in the house 6 and a half
years and no problems before this point with anything to do with the
heating system.

I believe that is how the system is wired, but tomorrow I shall open
up what I can and check all the wiring that I can see. It was odd that
the problem I had for a short period a couple of weeks ago was solved
by moving the mid-position valve lever to manual, but now the heating
still operates when it is set to automatic (a mode the switch seems to
want to move itself back into somehow). Perhaps the valve in there is
sticky or something. Would some stray electrical wiring or an
electrical fault in the mid-position valve possibly send a fire
command through to the boiler? If not what components are capable of
doing this and I can pay specific attention to those.

I am not a plumber or electrician, but have a physics degree and can
find my way around wiring and electricals given the time, though I
have a plumber and heating engineer in the family but they live in
another country unfortunately.

Ben.

OK, if it *has* worked in the past, and no changes have been made, it's very
unlikely that the tank stat is wired wrongly - so disregard my previous
suggestion.

Having ruled that out, the prime suspect has to be the 3-port valve or -
more particularly - its actuator (the electrical part). This has a strategic
role in the control of Y-Plan systems and is more often than not the culprit
when malfunctions occur. An explanation of what this does can be found athttp://www.diyfaq.org.uk/plumbing/controls/midpositionvalve.htm

To get your symptoms, you'd need an intermittent short between the white and
grey wires - which could perhaps happen if one of the microswitches in the
actuator is faulty. Given that you have already had problems with this, I
would be inclined to replace the actuator, since that will probably cure the
problem. Unless your valve is *very* old (which I don't think it is) you can
unbolt the actuator from the 'wet' part of the valve without needing to
drain the system. Make a careful note of the wiring before disconnecting the
electrics in order to connect the new one in exactly the same way.

Incidentally, the manual setting simply physically moves the valve to the
mid position, and is useful when filling the system from scratch since it
opens the HW and CH circuits at the same time and makes it easier to get the
air out. It's not intended for running the system in anger. In an emergency
(like a failed actuator motor) it gives you *some* heating - but only while
the HW is being heated. As soon as the HW demand is satisfied, the heating
goes off! In Auto mode, the valve automatically goes to one of 3 positions
[HW, Mid (both) or CH] depending on the combination of demands presented to
it.
--
Cheers,
Roger
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Okay, thank you very much for your assistance, I guess my best bet is
to try and replace the top of the valve (it does look like I can just
unscrew the top bit of it). I'll see about getting a replacement part
and I'll let you know. If you can think of anything else then please
let me know.

Many thanks.

Ben.