A moron replaced my water/heating timer..help

[Ninpo]

Hi folks

Before I moved back home to look after my grandfather they hired a moron to replace the Honeywell hot water/heating timer because they wanted to programme the on/off for the hot water/central heating separately (the Honeywell would only let you set a double on/off time, then you flicked to Once or Twice on the water/heating controls).

There's now a Siemens controller in place that is quite frankly, awesome. It lets you set a 7 day/3 times a day timer for each. However...

Originally if power was going to the unit, then the boiler would fire and heat the hot water. Then if you told it to turn on the heating, the radiators would get hot. I, an inexperienced person have now changed some of the wiring (moved red from 1 to 3) so that when the power is active, nothing happens and if you turn the hot water on, the hot water gets hot. However, just turning on the central heating, does not heat the radiators, however if both are turned on, both the hot water and the central heating gets hot.

Behind the timer plate two cables are coming in, one from a fused switch and another. The fused switch has live and neutral, the other has blue, red and yellow. From the switch live and neutral are going to L and N on the Siemens panel, on the other cable blue is going to N, red is going to 3 and yellow is going to 4.

This is driving me crazy, I can't get hold of the guy the old folks had in (surprise surprise) and we can't currently afford to bring in a spark or a corgi. I'm not a buffoon with normal electrical wiring however heating systems are alien to me.

If it helps, we have an expansion tank for cold water and the radiators in the loft, a cylinder in the airing cupboard in the bathroom where there is a thermostat, there's a valve that moves when the central heating is activated in the same cupboard. I can provide pictures if necessary. The boiler is downstairs in an outside closet and it's all gas fired.

I appreciate any advice anyone can offer, thank you.

 

[Agile]

I dont really understand what you are trying to say.

You start by saying a mysterious "they" had something changed.

You then start fiddling with the wiring when you admit you know nothing about it.

Now you complain that it does not work as you expect!

You say that you cannot afford to get a professional. In that case why not ask Age UK if they can help? Old people are expected to be kept warm. What is not expected is that others may come in and sabotage their heating system

 

[Ninpo]

Um..Did you actually read my post?

How is the "they" mysterious when I said before I moved back home to look after my grandfather? "They" are my grandparents.

I looked at the wiring diagram and moved the red wire from 1 to 3 on the Siemens box, which now results in the hot water coming on when requested instead of merely when power is supplied to the timer. A positive result. Which I explained, clearly, in my original post.

Age UK cannot help because my grandfather earns "too much" to qualify for any help from someone. He'd have disposable income if he did not have to supplement a full time carer (me) as well as pay for the external care he needs.

Are you now satisfied? There is plenty of detail in my original post, if you actually read it instead of thinking "heh I can look really smart and sarcastic here if I just respond to the first paragraph" you might find it.

Edit: By the way genius, this is a DIY site. People do not start out with DIY as experts.

 

[flameport]

From the description you have provided, it would appear that the heating system is of a design where the hot water cylinder is gravity fed and therefore cannot be controlled separately from the boiler.

The result of this is that 'heating only' will not work, regardless of the programmer installed, and there is no way to achieve this without alterations to the pipework and installing some additional components.

 

[Ninpo]

From the description you have provided, it would appear that the heating system is of a design where the hot water cylinder is gravity fed and therefore cannot be controlled separately from the boiler.

The result of this is that 'heating only' will not work, regardless of the programmer installed, and there is no way to achieve this without alterations to the pipework and installing some additional components.

Thank you for your reply. It did work with the old timer. It was fully possible to have hot water and not hot radiators.

 

[Agile]

Hi folks

Before I moved back home to look after my grandfather, he hired a moron to replace the Honeywell hot water/heating timer because they wanted to programme the on/off for the hot water/central heating separately (the Honeywell would only let you set a double on/off time, then you flicked to Once or Twice on the water/heating controls).

If you now read what you said then it now makes total sense!

Thats because I replaced the "they" which you had added after "grandfather" with "he". When you put "they" it was making it look as if it was a carer or social services or some do gooder family members.

If you have a gravity system as we suspect then, as you have been advised, what you seem to seek to do is not possible.

Very unfortunately many plumbers are tempted by an old person and will rush to fit anything regardless of the benefit that it might provide ( or not! ) thinking solely of their own profits ( often inflated for old people ! ).

I remain poorer because I give the best advice for the customer regardless of whether that results in no or less income for me.

Tony

 

[Ninpo]

As I said in my last post, with the old timer the radiators didn't get hot with the old timer when the hot water was on.

Also turning on the heating didn't require turning on the hot water manually.

I've taken some pictures, hopefully they add some useful information.

http://imgur.com/IWNNZ
http://imgur.com/NVz7Q
http://imgur.com/4fAjA
http://imgur.com/V9qiC
http://imgur.com/Q2cZH
http://imgur.com/Gc18A
http://imgur.com/UwiGG

I've hotlinked them to imgur as the raw images are rather large. I didn't want to downscale them in case some detail in the wiring or the diagrams was missed as a result.

 

[flameport]

On the back of the programmer, switch 5 should be in the 'down' position.
That is all you need to change.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Well somehow you have wired up the heating valve to the hot water side of the timer.

1 = Hot water off.
3 = Hot water on.
4 = Heating on.

5??? Are you talking DIP switches?

You cannot have heating WITHOUT hot water.

Frankly the whole system looks like a right abortion.

 

[Ninpo]

On the back of the programmer, switch 5 should be in the 'down' position.
That is all you need to change.

I just changed this, the boiler still does not come on when I tell the heating to fire up on the controller.

Well somehow you have wired up the heating valve to the hot water side of the timer.

1 = Hot water off.
3 = Hot water on.
4 = Heating on.

5??? Are you talking DIP switches?

You cannot have heating WITHOUT hot water.

Frankly the whole system looks like a right abortion.

No I'm not talking dip switches. If you look at the pictures, those terminals are numbered N L 1-4, left to right. I was working from memory when I said 5, apologies I meant 4.

I'm not sure what you mean by "you've wired up", I moved red from 1 to 3 as on 1, the hot water was on all the time. That's all I've done. The rest is as it was.

 

[Dan Robinson]

You have to have this set as if it was Gravity otherwise the heating will not work properly.

 

[flameport]

On the back of the programmer, switch 5 should be in the 'down' position.
That is all you need to change.

I just changed this, the boiler still does not come on when I tell the heating to fire up on the controller.

Did you press Reset after changing the switch?

 

[Ninpo]

You have to have this set as if it was Gravity otherwise the heating will not work properly.

Apologies but what do you mean by this? Right now there is only wiring on N L 3 and 4 but the system is not functioning as it was on the old timer. Are you saying I need a different timer? On the old timer you could turn on the hot water without hot radiators and you could turn the radiators on without telling the panel you wanted hot water.

To try and explain, on the old system:

Heating: Off, Once, Twice, Continuous
Water: Off, Once, Twice, Continuous

Once and Twice on both Hot Water and Heating shared the same timer. So you could input a maximum of on1: TIME, off1: TIME, on2: TIME, off2: TIME where TIME is an actual time of the day. If HW/CH were both set to Twice, they'd come on at the same time. If HW was set to Twice and CH was set to off, only the HW would come on and CH would only come on if you flicked it to Continuous.

On the current wiring I have to tell the panel to turn on the hot water AND the central heating for the radiators to get hot. If I tell it to turn the radiators on, nothing happens. If I tell it to turn the hot water on, the water heats up, the radiators do not.

All I am trying to figure out is how to have it make the radiators hot without having to ask for both.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Have you pressed the reset button after changing the DIP switch?

 

[flameport]

Switch 5 down.
Press Reset button as indicated here:

Untitled

• flameport
• 7 Nov 2011
• 1