Boiler/heating issue

[oldbutnotdead]

The boiler is overheating because water isn't circulating through it. You say the pump is running- have you set it to manual maximum rate and can you hear it running (won't be a lot of noise, should be a faint hum and on a recently refilled system you should hear the odd air bubble as the water is moving through the pipes.
If the leak is from the drain cock (2nd pic in your last post) it's irritating but not to be worried about at the moment- it will not be causing your heating problems. The red valve in pic 1 in your last post is more of a concern- is that dripping from the stuffing gland? Has it been altered by your 'engineers'. Can you post a pic showing more of the pipework (trying to determine what that gate valve is doing and whether it should be open or closed).
Just a final one- pump valves. Lefty loosie, righty tighty? Don't use gorilla force but you will need a spanner on the shafts (shame they didn't fit better valves but they could have done worse)

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

- I went to reset the boiler and got it fired up, again it worked for 1 minute and then cut off. I specifically checked the pipes above it again, prior to the reset. The left pipe was again very hot - so not sure if this is normal since the boiler was not working for the past 2-3 hours (my understanding is that the water should have been cooled down). Could there be an electrical fault in the boiler perhaps causing constant overheating?

No, will not be an electrical fault on the boiler, the boiler is doing all it is supposed to do - heating the water, as you have confirmed above. Your problem is that heat produced in the water, is not being moved out of the boiler to your system, so your boiler is locking out for safety. Your botchit and run 'engineer' should not have left you in that position.

Your pump should run all the time the boiler runs, but some systems have the pump run on after the boiler shuts down, to get rid of residual heat in the boiler.

What you are looking for, is the cause of having no actual circulation at all. Are both of those valve definitely open, fully anti-clockwise? To be sure, try closing them half a turn.

Can the actuator head of the motorised valve be removed, to allow the actual water valve to be turned? When the boiler and pump are running, see if you can manually turn the valve stem and listen for the flow of water through the valve. It sounds to me like they might have messed up badly and there wasn't really a problem with the actuator at all, the 'engineer' was just way out of his depth on a simple issue.

Did you notice the water colour when it was drained out? There might be a blockage in the system if it was really bad.

 

[Rayniac]

The red valve in pic 1 in your last post is more of a concern- is that dripping from the stuffing gland? Has it been altered by your 'engineers'. Can you post a pic showing more of the pipework (trying to determine what that gate valve is doing and whether it should be open or closed).
Just a final one- pump valves. Lefty loosie, righty tighty? Don't use gorilla force but you will need a spanner on the shafts (shame they didn't fit better valves but they could have done worse)

So perhaps the pics I uploaded may have been a bit unclear. On pic 1 on my previous post there is no leak/dripping from the red valve or anywhere nearby. The only leak is on pic 2 from my previous post (i.e. the drain cock). I will upload several pics here to try to show the system/pipes. I am not sure what the workers have done tbh, that is in terms of tempering with anything else apart from the parts they changed.

I tried the pump valves once again, opened fully anti clockwise - no effect.

 

[Rayniac]

Your pump should run all the time the boiler runs, but some systems have the pump run on after the boiler shuts down, to get rid of residual heat in the boiler.

I am a bit unclear on the pump itself - trying to understand something (warning for a stupid question). Is there any circulation at all if the boiler is not working? I mean not the pump working, but water being circulated? The reason why I am asking this is - when I reset the boiler and fires up, there is no difference as to what is happening to the pump noise wise, it still seems running with a very low level of noise but it does not feel like any water is going through. I understand the pump would work when prompted (i.e. right now I have set the controller to heating and since it is cold, I understand the controller is pushing the pump to work.

The valves are deff open, I tried this several times now.

I did not have a look at the water that was drained out, but all my attempts to bleed the radiators were showing clear water (not sure if this is of any indication at all).

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I am a bit unclear on the pump itself - trying to understand something (warning for a stupid question). Is there any circulation at all if the boiler is not working? I mean not the pump working, but water being circulated? The reason why I am asking this is - when I reset the boiler and fires up, there is no difference as to what is happening to the pump noise wise, it still seems running with a very low level of noise but it does not feel like any water is going through. I understand the pump would work when prompted (i.e. right now I have set the controller to heating and since it is cold, I understand the controller is pushing the pump to work.

The original way for thing to work involved the pump only running when there was a call for heat and the valve actuator had moved to the correct position. The later method, is as before, but the boiler directly controls the pump - so it runs with a call and a few minutes after the call is satisfied, so as to remove heat in the boiler.

I suspect your system is the probably the earlier type, not that it makes much difference to your issue. If you room stat is calling for heat, the pump will be running anyway. I've not seen that pump before, but there is a hole, with a direction of rotation printed around it. You could try poking the end of a screwdriver though that hole, to confirm the pump is running. Usually, there is a large chromed brass plug to remove, to access the end of the pump shaft, but I guess not in this case?

One further thing I have just thought of - maybe the pump is air-locked. If it is air-locked, there will be no water in the pump, to be pumped. It will just spin quietly doing nothing. Have a look on the pump for maybe a bleed nipple, and/or look at the instructions if they have left you them.

I will guarantee your cowboy 'engineers' didn't top up the system inhibitor, when they finished, but something to put on the list, for once you have your system running again.

 

[Rayniac]

I will try to open the pump, I opened the old one, seemed straight forward but not sure with this one, I will check it out. We have not bled the pump out, but I was reassured that the installers did it (they bled the radiators too). As you can imagine I then bled them out several more times. In any case I will try to bleed the pump.

On the inhibitor - in fact they did put some in the system, but this was done after twice specifically asking them for this to be done...

Many thanks!

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

On the inhibitor - in fact they did put some in the system, but this was done after twice specifically asking them for this to be done...

You shouldn't need to ask for it, it's a system wrecker if they don't put it in..

I found a pump manual on the Grundfos site. Not many words, pictograms, but it seems to suggest a posidrive screwdriver can be poked in the hole to check for pump rotation/ spin the pump manually.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

I wasn't sure whether the draincock itself was leaking or whether it was dripping down from the red gate valve. Still can't tell what that valve is doing, if it is in the primary heating pipework and it's been closed then that won't be helping matters. Yes when the pump is turning water should be moving through the boiler, the flow getting v hot and staying hot indicates that the water is not moving.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Pump running- what lights are lit on the front of the pump when it is running?

 

[Rayniac]

Pump running- what lights are lit on the front of the pump when it is running?

I am attching 2 pics showing the pump when working. This is how it looks when running, irrespective of the heating setting. The pump setting is at constant curve 3 (factory setting and also recommended for venting the pump).

Up until now I wasn't able to find a way to bleed the pump - as it is self venting I suspect there is no specific process for that apart from setting the mode to constant curve 3. In addition, the pump is not blocked - no error lights are flashing.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Fair enough, you've answered that possibility. That 3 port valve your 'engineers' fitted- what make is it? (Tried to ID it from the pic but couldn't get a match). Did they replace the whole valve or just the actuator?
I know you've checked that the actuator is responding to settings on the controller, I'm wondering if the actuator is actually moving the valve...

 

[BlueLoo]

If it were me (not a plumber).

I would walk thr system, draw it out on paper, including valves. Make sure all the valves are working correctly, make sure the pump is in the right direction, make sure the boiler controls are properly set and if that didn't find something obvious, i would remove a rad and flush it out to see how much crud is in the system.
In fact, i'd flush them all out and i would leave water flushing through the system for a while.

I'd then refill the system and get the pump to work through each rad on its own (do this by turning the boiler temp to zero, or at least, thats how my boiler works).

Also i would make sure all of the rad valves are fully open when refilling.
I wouldn't worry about balance either as I'd redo that from scratch.

I'd then delete the contact who told you the boiler needs replacing from my phone

Keep at it.

 

[Rayniac]

I was under the impression that the actuator was changed together with the valves. Upon closer inspection it looks like the valves are not new (they do look different/newer than the other piping so that may have confused me that these were changed). I am attaching 2 pics of the actuator and the valves.

In addition, this is the summary of the work that the company said they carried out and the advice provided - changing the boiler:

 

[BlueLoo]

Replacing the programmer because it constantly sends power?

 

[Rayniac]

Replacing the programmer because it constantly sends power?

That was done without my knowledge and I only got to know this post replacement.

The motorised valve issue I saw with my eyes, the valve was only able to go to 2 out of 3 positions irrespective of the call from the programmer. But it worked fine prior to installation of the pump so I am assuming that this was somehow caused by what work was carried out.