Hot Water Problem
 

Hi (repost)

I am the midst up doing up my bathroom and Friday afternoon removed a
radiator, including the valves (i.e. leaving open pipes at each side). I
foolishly thought that since the heating was off for the summer it wouldn't
matter.

When a small amount of water appeared I figured that was because the 3-way
valve might have to make its way past the "heating" position, and capped the
pipes off on Saturday.

Today (Sunday) the hot water is refusing to heat up.

I figured there might be air in the system and found a little screw on the
infeed from the boiler to the hot water tank. I loosened this temporarily
and some air came out followed by a small amount of water, but the pipe to
the hot water tank is still not getting hot so the water inside the tank is
not getting hot.

I checked the CH expansion tank and that is OK, i.e. it hasn't run out of
water, it seems to fill OK when the level drops.

The boiler is definately working as is the pump. In fact they are working
overtime as the water in the cylinder never gets warm enough to switch them
off !

Any ideas what else i should look at ?



Stuart

"Stuart Black" wrote in
:


The boiler is definately working as is the pump. In fact they are
working overtime as the water in the cylinder never gets warm enough
to switch them off !

Any ideas what else i should look at ?


As there's no takers I'll have another go.

As your boiler and pump are running the heat must be going somewhere; I
have to assume it's into the heating, if not there should have been an
explosion as all your safety cutouts have failed.

It may be that your 3 port valve has failed actually in the valve,
rather than the actuator - I'm told this is pretty rare, but if you
disturbed a piece of crud....

You may be able to remove the top bit of the valve (the electrics) and
see if you can move the actual stem with a wrench. With older valves you
can't do this.

Putting it into "mamual" should have done this if the brass bit of the
valve is working.

If your pump and boiler is working, and neither the rads or hot water
are heating up, I should evecuate the area.

HTH

mike

Thanks Mike,

Valve is working, I think the boiler is overheating as it seems far more
active than normal.

The primary feed into the cylinder is getting hot, as is the feed out after
a while, but the coil is having nowhere near the heating effect, both in
temperature or voume of heated water.

I still suspect that the removal of the radiator is the cause but it's not
an obvious problem to diagnose. Any thoughts on how such an act could cause
the hot water feed to become ineffective ?

Stuart


"mike ring" wrote in message
52.50...
"Stuart Black" wrote in
:


The boiler is definately working as is the pump. In fact they are
working overtime as the water in the cylinder never gets warm enough
to switch them off !

Any ideas what else i should look at ?


As there's no takers I'll have another go.

As your boiler and pump are running the heat must be going somewhere; I
have to assume it's into the heating, if not there should have been an
explosion as all your safety cutouts have failed.

It may be that your 3 port valve has failed actually in the valve,
rather than the actuator - I'm told this is pretty rare, but if you
disturbed a piece of crud....

You may be able to remove the top bit of the valve (the electrics) and
see if you can move the actual stem with a wrench. With older valves you
can't do this.

Putting it into "mamual" should have done this if the brass bit of the
valve is working.

If your pump and boiler is working, and neither the rads or hot water
are heating up, I should evecuate the area.

HTH

mike

"Stuart Black" wrote in
:

Thanks Mike,

Valve is working, I think the boiler is overheating as it seems far
more active than normal.

The primary feed into the cylinder is getting hot, as is the feed out
after a while, but the coil is having nowhere near the heating effect,
both in temperature or voume of heated water.

I still suspect that the removal of the radiator is the cause but it's
not an obvious problem to diagnose. Any thoughts on how such an act
could cause the hot water feed to become ineffective ?

Stuart

I've got to say I haven't a clue.

Ican't see how removing the radiator has done anything, unless it
drastically changed the C/H circuit.

Rads are usually wired in parallel across the main boiler pipes so removing
one should not affect the circuit too much - is it possible yours are in
series, so you've blocked the circuit (very unlikely)?

Have you got TRVs on the rads, which are closed due to the summer
temperatures? Can you adjust them to get flow?

In any case, I can't see how this would affect the totally separate HW
circuit.

I forgot something - are the rads getting hot, because of demand from the
room stat, or perhaps a fault, so that the lack of hot water is because of
hot rads?

Have you got a bleed valve on the primary - sorry, I forgot, you have, and
it works - just make sure you have a nice steady squirt of water from it
after a bit, not "fizzing"

When all is said and done, I can't see how your boiler can pump 1215 kW
into your tank without something blowing after about 1/2 hour or so. And if
the boiler safety stat isn't cutting out pretty quickly (short cycling) the
heat must be going somewhere, the boiler stat would cut very fast if it
weren't.

FRankly all the above is very speculative, I had hoped some of the more
knowledgeable folk would take up your problem, it was either something you
said, or perhaps theyre baffled! I don't quite see how to get their
attention, they can't be forced to reply.

That's the best I can do unless I think of something else; I hope you find
the answer soon,

mike

mike ring wrote in
52.50:

Incidentally, this thread is rather a long way back on a busy group like
this, my newsreader goes to it because I've posted, but you probably will
have to repost to bring your problem back to the top in the hope someone
will pick it up - I really don't know why no-ones answered, but thiings get
swamped very quickly unless you get a reaction - you're prolly nearly a
thousand posts down by now.

And usually the experts here love a problem, especially someone elses

mike