My house will not get warm enough?

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7 Dec 2010
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Flintshire
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United Kingdom
Hi all,
I am new to the site so please bear with me.

I have a potterton suprima 50 boiler, a sunvic programmer to control CH and HW and a sunvic digital room thermostat to control heating temps, programmes etc. CH kept permanently on at programmer and controlled at digi stat. HW just at programmer by boiler.

House was built circa 2006 so it isn't an old house or system, my problem is that this winter the house will not get warm enough. Around 17.5-18 degrees is all i seem to be able to get. I've done nothing different this winter to the last few. The rads and flow pipe never get piping hot? Heating can be on all day but temp stays as 17.5-18 and not the 20 i want!

The boiler seems to be constantly firing up and only staying on for 30-40 seconds at a time before stopping. It is not locking out just flashing green indicating boiler temp satisfied. The system has been balanced for years with TRV's etc where we want them, boiler temp set to max.

Also, at time of posting the cylinder stat clicks around 35 degrees, usually kept at high 50's to 60 so not sure whats going on here but have noticed water not as hot as usual. Pressure seems fine, i have reached the end of my limited knowledge.

:cry: Has anyone any ideas?
 
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Bit stuck there, is there an easy way of finding out? There is a cylinder and red vessel above with pressure guage on, white vessel just off cylinder which i think is expansion tank? When pressure drops i open two valves/taps to raise to marker? Tribune cylinder that says indirect 180 on it.
Does this help?
 
Yep, pressure up to indicator.

Rads only warm to the touch, not piping, same as flow and return.

Could the water temp be the problem? ie if thats low for some reason the colder water would make water flowing through pipes colder, hense colder house or is that too straightforward? Or should'nt what water is doing affect CH?
 
Turn the temp dial up on the boiler and see if the rads get hotter. The boiler should be able to get the rads up to temp where if you touch them they feel hot not just warm (as long as the temp gauge on the boiler is set to that temp).

When the temp is mild in winter outside I run my rads at a lowish temp but when it gets cold outside (like now) I have to turn the temp on the boiler up to get the house warmed up in a short time.
 
Boiler temp always set to max, recently boiler appears to cut out after 30-40 seconds, doesn't seem to be on long enough to heat water to high enough temp to heat rads to me, but what do i know?
 
How hot is the flow pipe just above the boiler getting.

Is it getting hot quickly? (this will cause the boiler to go off)

If it is, you have a flow problem. (pump/partial blockage)

If the flow pipe is not getting hot and the boiler is going off, you have a temperature control problem (sensor/pcb)
 
scatmanjohn, cheers,
Flow pipe is only getting warm, not hot to touch.
how do i go about finding out which fault it is?

Also, just had heating off for hour or so and hot water on, boiler saying temp satisfied but cylinder thermostat and hot water valve are open indicating it wants heating? Water from tap piping hot but cyl stat clicking off around 35-40 degrees and nowhere near the 60 ish set at, is this an indication of a fault you mentioned or a faulty stat?

Just put heating on in last half hour, rads getting warm but not hot, flow pipe bit warmer but still not hot to touch, boiler still saying temp satisfied once it has fired up for 1 minute or so.

Help??
 
Presuming your boiler is more off than it is on, could be that your internal boiler thermostat might be confused - it thinks the flow water is hot enough when it clearly isn't. Personally i'd try turning the temperature dial to different positions to see if it makes any difference.

Failing that, you might have to get the thermostat replaced.
 
Thanks,
I'll try that, what about water cyl stat? Any ideas here, water hot from taps etc but cyl stat indicating temp around 35degrees.

Does anyone know if the hot water temp, how long it's on etc will affect the central heating side of the system?
 
You can have some hot water in the cylinder even if the cylinder stat thinks it is only at 35°, as the cylinder heats from the top down. The stat normally only comes into play once all the water in the cylinder above the stat position is hot.
IME cylinder stats are not exactly precision devices, but they are good enough for the job they have to do.

If the boiler output has dropped because of a faulty boiler stat, the hot water may now be demanding more than it's fair share of the limited output.
 

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