Hello Everyone,
Okay firstly sorry for such a long post.
I think we may have a problem with our central heating system.
We have recently had problems with our boiler where the pilot light would only light but rarely actually fire up, on the occasions it did fire up there would be a clicking/crackling/almost electrical arcing kind of noise come from the boiler. We have a cover plan (£15/month) with British Gas so called them out and their engineer (for £50 callout fee, not bad). He did two things (sods law that the boiler didnt make the noises when the engineer attended our house but I explained the noises and asked could it be the gas valve), he didn't know what the problem was so he did the following:
1) Lubricated and sprayed WD40 around the boiler fan
2) Replaced the PCB (circuit board) with new one he had in his van
He tested the boiler after doing this and again it didn't make the crackling/rapid clicking/electrical noises that it had made before so he left.
The next day I came home from work to my partner saying she felt light headed, dizzy and had headache, there was a distinct smell of gas in the kitchen and the boiler was on, again making the intermittent crackling/clicking/electrical noise so we phoned the gas emergency helpline 0800 111 999 and isolated the gas valve outside in the meter cabinet -this was at 6:50pm. Northern Gas Networks eventually turned up at 1:10am and made everything safe and thankfully their engineer witnessed the noise being made by the boiler, he mentioned it could be the selonoid on the gas valve so we called British Gas back and although they wanted another £50 callout (we told them where to go) they sent an engineer out on a recall the next day. Upon his inspection he agreed that it must be the gas valve and so went away to order the new part from Middlesbrough and the next day afternoon he returned with a new Honeywell gas valve (which incidentally makes a slight humming noise when the boiler is operating, you can hardly hear the humming to be fair and assume this is normal).
Since then everything seems okay, no gas smells or leaks, no clicking or dodgy electrical shorting noises from the boiler... however...
For some reason - and to be fair i think this has been happening before, possibly for the last 12 months or so... I think the boiler could be short cycling, whenever we turn the heating on via the room thermostat it gets up to temperature and then gets in a cycle of on for a few minutes then off for a few minutes and keeps repeating until we switch it off by turning the room stat below about 16deg... Thinking back I'm now not sure if this is whats worn out the old gas valve... on, off, on, off, on, off etc etc possibly thats what wore out the old valve turning on and off all the time so frequently?
For some reason the room thermostat doesn't click on when its at say 15/16deg even if we leave it at that and it gets cold, it only clicks on when we physically move or touch the dial to around 20deg (sometimes the dial can be slightly pushed inwards without turning and it starts the boiler), i have tested it and let the room get quite cold with windows open etc and it doesn't come on on its own but when we adjust the dial and force it above 20deg it comes on and then goes into the short cycling process repeating on, off, on, off every few minutes, its quite annoying and not sure if this is right.
Can anyone offer any advise please?
Our setup is as follows:-
Boiler - Ideal Classic Standard FF 230-280 (located in kitchen)
Boiler stat range is 1-6 - currently set at just below 5.
Programmable timer - Landis & Staefa RWB9 - both CH and HW are set to ON - we dont use the timer to be honest we just leave both the hot water and central heating set to ON position all the time.
Room Thermostat - Towerstat RS (located in lounge)
Cylinder stat - wrapped around hot water cylinder in upstairs airing cupboard, stat position approx 1/3 of way up from bottom, set at 63deg.
System is open vented
Pump is a Grundfos UPS 15-60 (3 speeds) set on 2.
Our house is a three storey two bedroom end terrace with approx 8 radiators.
Incidentally the LED doesn't seem to work on the room thermostat but i think this stopped working a long time ago. I have opened the stat up and there are only two red wires to terminals 1 and 3, live and switched live, no neutral although I thought this type of stat needed a neutral?
Sorry for such a long and laborious post, hoping someone can help or at least point me in the right direction. At the moment am thinking of spending £15 just to try out a new room thermostat but not sure if this will even work, just want to stop the short cycling of the boiler as it cant be doing any good and could possibly lead to frying the heat exchanger?
Dont really want the turn up the boiler stat or hot water culinder stat as don't want to cause scaling. Although to be fair i have tried a combination of both and it doesnt stop the short cycling, i have also tried the CH pump on all three speeds but its just the same.
Many thanks. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.
Regards
Matt
Okay firstly sorry for such a long post.
I think we may have a problem with our central heating system.
We have recently had problems with our boiler where the pilot light would only light but rarely actually fire up, on the occasions it did fire up there would be a clicking/crackling/almost electrical arcing kind of noise come from the boiler. We have a cover plan (£15/month) with British Gas so called them out and their engineer (for £50 callout fee, not bad). He did two things (sods law that the boiler didnt make the noises when the engineer attended our house but I explained the noises and asked could it be the gas valve), he didn't know what the problem was so he did the following:
1) Lubricated and sprayed WD40 around the boiler fan
2) Replaced the PCB (circuit board) with new one he had in his van
He tested the boiler after doing this and again it didn't make the crackling/rapid clicking/electrical noises that it had made before so he left.
The next day I came home from work to my partner saying she felt light headed, dizzy and had headache, there was a distinct smell of gas in the kitchen and the boiler was on, again making the intermittent crackling/clicking/electrical noise so we phoned the gas emergency helpline 0800 111 999 and isolated the gas valve outside in the meter cabinet -this was at 6:50pm. Northern Gas Networks eventually turned up at 1:10am and made everything safe and thankfully their engineer witnessed the noise being made by the boiler, he mentioned it could be the selonoid on the gas valve so we called British Gas back and although they wanted another £50 callout (we told them where to go) they sent an engineer out on a recall the next day. Upon his inspection he agreed that it must be the gas valve and so went away to order the new part from Middlesbrough and the next day afternoon he returned with a new Honeywell gas valve (which incidentally makes a slight humming noise when the boiler is operating, you can hardly hear the humming to be fair and assume this is normal).
Since then everything seems okay, no gas smells or leaks, no clicking or dodgy electrical shorting noises from the boiler... however...
For some reason - and to be fair i think this has been happening before, possibly for the last 12 months or so... I think the boiler could be short cycling, whenever we turn the heating on via the room thermostat it gets up to temperature and then gets in a cycle of on for a few minutes then off for a few minutes and keeps repeating until we switch it off by turning the room stat below about 16deg... Thinking back I'm now not sure if this is whats worn out the old gas valve... on, off, on, off, on, off etc etc possibly thats what wore out the old valve turning on and off all the time so frequently?
For some reason the room thermostat doesn't click on when its at say 15/16deg even if we leave it at that and it gets cold, it only clicks on when we physically move or touch the dial to around 20deg (sometimes the dial can be slightly pushed inwards without turning and it starts the boiler), i have tested it and let the room get quite cold with windows open etc and it doesn't come on on its own but when we adjust the dial and force it above 20deg it comes on and then goes into the short cycling process repeating on, off, on, off every few minutes, its quite annoying and not sure if this is right.
Can anyone offer any advise please?
Our setup is as follows:-
Boiler - Ideal Classic Standard FF 230-280 (located in kitchen)
Boiler stat range is 1-6 - currently set at just below 5.
Programmable timer - Landis & Staefa RWB9 - both CH and HW are set to ON - we dont use the timer to be honest we just leave both the hot water and central heating set to ON position all the time.
Room Thermostat - Towerstat RS (located in lounge)
Cylinder stat - wrapped around hot water cylinder in upstairs airing cupboard, stat position approx 1/3 of way up from bottom, set at 63deg.
System is open vented
Pump is a Grundfos UPS 15-60 (3 speeds) set on 2.
Our house is a three storey two bedroom end terrace with approx 8 radiators.
Incidentally the LED doesn't seem to work on the room thermostat but i think this stopped working a long time ago. I have opened the stat up and there are only two red wires to terminals 1 and 3, live and switched live, no neutral although I thought this type of stat needed a neutral?
Sorry for such a long and laborious post, hoping someone can help or at least point me in the right direction. At the moment am thinking of spending £15 just to try out a new room thermostat but not sure if this will even work, just want to stop the short cycling of the boiler as it cant be doing any good and could possibly lead to frying the heat exchanger?
Dont really want the turn up the boiler stat or hot water culinder stat as don't want to cause scaling. Although to be fair i have tried a combination of both and it doesnt stop the short cycling, i have also tried the CH pump on all three speeds but its just the same.
Many thanks. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.
Regards
Matt