heating wont come on on its own

[pmatty77]

Hi all,
My g/f has a old back boiler which is chewing up the £,s when the heating is turned on the water tank gets very hot,the fitter who came out said it was because it was a two way valve and you cant have one on without the other,i have a back boiler and when my heating is on the water tank takes a long time to heat up but hers seems to be costing loads,he said only way round it is too fit a three way valve but they (the council) wont do it....any suggestions and is he correct in his diagnosis.

 

[fitz1]

loads of lagging around the tank should help.

 

[pmatty77]

Hi,
It has lagging, it's just the point that it seems to be heating the water constantly for the heating to be on..thanks

 

[AfterburN003]

It sounds like she may have a basicset up with NO Port Valves.
Herhot water might be working off of gravity and her CH is pumped so basically the pump may be the only control on the system. When she selects HW all that happens is that the boiler firs up andthe heat circulates thru gravity. When she selects CH the boiler and pump come on thus pushing the heat thru the radiators however it will still circulate thru the HW circuit thru gravity. AUpgrading to a fully pumped system( Prt valves) wouldbe thesolution.

 

[pmatty77]

My system is ancient and works like this for h/w i turn the thermostat down and the tank heats quickly but the radiators upstairs do get a bit warm when i turn the thermo up the heating comes on but the tank takes longer to get hot water,hers just gets continually hot,is theengineer correct on the 2 valve 3 valve issue?

 

[anotherbgeng]

ok .. a basic back boiler system would have been installed on a gravity pumped pipework set up...
where the pump is the only control and that is powered for radiator circuit only ...
the hot water circuit will run to the temperature of the back boiler thermostat setting ....so you get hot hot water...and radiators that run when the pump is on only......

 

[Nige F]

My system is ancient and works like this for h/w i turn the thermostat down and the tank heats quickly but the radiators upstairs do get a bit warm when i turn the thermo up the heating comes on but the tank takes longer to get hot water,hers just gets continually hot,is theengineer correct on the 2 valve 3 valve issue?

Probably not , but he`s probably an exellent Gas Safe engineer