Glow worm Central heating real problem to me? Can you help?

Hi all. I have just found this site and what a wonderful collection of good advice and DIY greatness.

I have read the sticky faqs above, but cannot find an answer to my particular dilema. Here goes:

Having just purchased my own house for the 1st time having spent 22 yrs in the RAF and living in managed married quarters, I find myself faced with a central heating problem. The system is a a Glow worm 56/2F back boiler unit of some 26 years in age. We have radiators without TRVs in all rooms in my semi 3 bed house. The switch unit in the kitchen has the various settings for hot water/ central heating, off, constant timed and whatever. The back boiler is situated behind the fire place in the living room, the fire is a Glow worm Fireblaze 2 BBU.

On switching the central heating on, with thermostat (placed by front door) on max, the pump starts and the thermostat lights up and clicks on, but the boiler does not ignite so no hot radiators? OK, try the hot water, turn on the hot water to constant and hey presto, the boiler ignites and we have hot water. But we also have hot radiators too? But only upstairs? If I switch the central heating on to constant, the downstairs radiators go hot. Great, so for hot radiators I need to have hot water on? I cannot just have the central heating on? Is this normal? What about summer? If we want hot water, we will get hot radiators?

See my problem? To summarise, if we want the heating on we must have the water on and the thermostat does nothing except pump the water around the rads. The way it stands at the moment is that I have to have hot water on to make the house warm and I have to keep switching it on and off to keep the house comfortable.

Can you help with this?

Cheers

Andy

If you have a gravity hot water circuit and pumped central heating then this is how the system will work. Rubbish isn't it?

None of it's allowed now.

EliteHeat said:

If you have a gravity hot water circuit and pumped central heating then this is how the system will work. Rubbish isn't it?

None of it's allowed now.

Click to expand...

So its supposed to be like this? If it is, that helps me, because I just wanted to know if it was a fault.

Thanks for your help.

Andy006 said:

...On switching the central heating on, with thermostat (placed by front door) on max, the pump starts and the thermostat lights up and clicks on, but the boiler does not ignite so no hot radiators?...

Click to expand...

this bit is not right, whatever kind of system you have.

However...
It is quite usual on old systems for the boiler only to come on when Hot Water is on. This is not a defect. Your HW cylinder should be well insulated so it loses little heat, in which case it does no harm to have the HW on. Any heat escaping from the cylinder will contribute to heating the house.

It is very common to have the HW on from (say) 7am to 11pm, with the CH on from (say) 7am to 9am; then 5pm to 11pm if you are out all day; and 7am to 11pm if you are at home. In this arrangement the CH is never on with the HW off. This is arranged by setting the HW to "once" and the CH to "twice" on your timer.

If the rads get hot when the HW is on but the CH is off (or the thermostat is satisfied) then leakage of circulating water can warm the upstairs radiators. One way to deal with this is to fit TRVs. Do that when the weather is warmer and you can afford to do without the heating for a weekend. It is also a good time to give it a chemical clean and flush, and add some Lockshield Valves with drain-off in the downstairs rads.

Unwanted hot flow will also occur if you have no electric valve, or if you have an electric valve but it is faulty.

i would suggest your pump aint working or you have a two port valve that aint working.

Well thanks for the answers guys. I am starting to believe that its supposed to be this way.

Cheers

Andy

Andy006 said:

...If I switch the central heating on to constant, the downstairs radiators go hot...

Click to expand...

So I think the pump is working.

The pump is working. I can hear it. Its just that to have any form of heating, I must put the HW on.

So put the HW on No prob!

sounds normal.

Yeh, it sounds great eh? So if I want hot water in the summer I will have hot radiators too. That is not normal.

it is in most of the pit villages up north

from when they used solid fuel

you could fit trvs on the upstairs rads

or get the heating flow pipe altered at the boiler.

fitz1 said:

or get the heating flow pipe altered at the boiler.

Click to expand...

Really worth it on a 26 year old boiler??

the heating timer shouldnt give u the option of heating only so the hot water has to be on 4 the heating to work in summer u will have to turn all the rads off upstairs by the valve on each rad. if the pipework is easy to get to that feeds the upstairs rads you could add a single check valve on the main flow to stop the thermal syphon to upstairs rads as a quick fix soloution to turning them on & off by hand.