Upgrading My Central Heating

[deanalewis]

Hi Folks,

I am looking over the next few months to upgrade my heating system. Ideally I would like to do the following.

• 
  Install 3 Way Valve to Control HW Tank and Radiators Seperately
  Install Thermostat

I am unable to find any Zone Valves or 3 Way Valves, I have included a picture of the top of my tank, Could it be that the T Piece is just feeding radiators and hot water at the same time?

I include pictures of my current heating setup. On the top of my Hot Water Tank.

I need help to do the following.

• 
  Identify Pipe that I need to cut to put a 3 way motorised Valve.
  Advice on Installing a Wiring Center as I dont think my home has one.

Plumbers in my area are prohivibitvely expensive so I am looking to do this myself. If I screw up then I have no problem paying over the odds to get it fixed but I would like to try my hand at it.

Can someone help?

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• deanalewis
• 12 Jan 2014
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[Slugbabydotcom]

That's a rare item you have there in the top of your cylinder. I've heard of them but haven't seen one since my college days back in the very early eighties. I would refer to it as a 'microversion' A little bit of research also brought up the name 'hot rod'. That's as far as I got. Can't find any current suppliers or anything at the moment. Is there a name on it?
These devices replace your primary coil basically converting a direct cylinder into an indirect one.
I would trace the pipes from this back to see where and how they are connected into the system. The one which gets hottest first would be your flow pipe and where it connects to the system would be the best place to fit a diverter or 2 zone valves.

 

[lauriehurman]

I am NOT an expert (I'm an electrician not a Plumber).
The more I think about this the more I think your assumption must be wrong. A few questions occur to me.

If the tee at the outlet of the hot water tank served the radiators then what would have been the point of converting the tank to indirect heating?

If the tee at the outlet of the hot water tank served the radiators then what is the pump doing?

I think you should follow the above advice and find where the “hotrod” pipes meet the radiator pipes.

Also;
A “wiring centre” is just an easy way of connecting all of the components together. It doesn't, of itself, do anything. A more important question is; What is that (single channel?) programmer controlling?

Laurie

 

[ianmcd]

The single channel timer switches both the pump and the boiler on at the same time so you can only have heating and water, the thing in your pic that heats the HW is a salamander HW Blade and should just be treated like an indirect coil in a cylinder as it just behaves in the same way

 

[lauriehurman]

Thanks Ian that's what I feared.

What would be the point of going to all the trouble of introducing a diverter valve if the programmer prevents you from separating the two functions.

2 channel programmer, Room stat and tank stat is surly the first step to improve the system. You need an electrician

Laurie

 

[stem]

The existing single channel time switch could be retained and used to control the 'on' and 'off' times for the hot water wired in conjunction with a cylinder thermostat.

Then a programmable thermostat that controls both time and temperature could be used to control the central heating.