CH & HW system stops after the first hour in the morning

[Alienfish]

Hi,

I'm having the above problem with my system - any help would be greatly appreciated. This happened once over xmas but has now become a daily occurrence. It normally causes us to wake up with a cold house.

- CH & HW comes on at 5:30 am. Programming unit has 2 lights showing both systems on.
- Room temperature goes up over the next hour to nearly 17 deg C. It does not reach the temperature needed to turn off the CH by the thermostat.
- System seems to shut down. No more flushing noise through pipes, pump is not pumping, boiler is not firing. Radiators go cold. Programming unit lights stay on.
- System can be reenabled by turning the programmer off, waiting and on again. Also by lowering the thermostat (through the click), waiting and then up through the click again. This is enough to make the system work for the rest of the day, with the room temperature being regulated by the house thermostat.
- I have had a plumber around who says he is mystified by this. He has replaced both the programming unit and the house thermostat but it has made no difference. So now I'm 100s of quid down (London) and still not got the problem fixed. I'll talk to him again today but I'd be grateful for any input.
- I have recreated the problem at a different time of day by letting the temperature drop to say 15 deg C, setting the time on the programming unit to 5:29 am and going through the normal cycle.
- The 10 yr+ gas boiler says "glow worm Ultimate" on the front. There is also a cylinder with thermostat, 2 valves, pump, programming unit & loads of wiring. I don't trust any of it as I've had to have most of it redone in the 7 years I have lived here, due to virtually every component failing at one time or other.
- The system is maintained under a BG service contract. As this is for emergencies only, am I correct in thinking they won't come out as I can manually fix this problem at 6:30 every morning? That's what Thames water said when I had a loo problem under their contract.

Thanks in advance.
The Fish.

 

[chrishutt]

The system is maintained under a BG service contract.

Get them out to fix it. That's what you're paying for!

 

[ChrisR]

Too right! Is the BG cover strictly "emergency"? A breakdown is a breakdown..

I don't think this would be a difficult problem to diagnose if one were there while it's in the "not working" mode. Must admit though, nothing much springs to mind unless the motorised valve is playing up.

Do let us know..!

 

[Alienfish]

Thanks,

I've called up BG and they'll come out tomorrow morning, even though I told them I'm able to get the heating back manually. I must just have been confused with the Thames water service being emergency only.

I chose that over the BG equivalent because they had a 2 hr callout rather than 24 hours (or the like), but I now realise that the BG version covers non-emergency problems so is actually better. As long as you don't mind them taking a day to get to an emergency. I suppose I could always turn the main valve off myself . Time to swap methinks.

I'd better call the previous plumber and limit the haemorraging of money. Not very clever to pay for insurance & then not use it .

 

[Alienfish]

As requested, here is the outcome -
3 BG Engineers called. First one couldn't fix it immediately, seemed slightly reluctant to do stuff but had the gab. Said he would come back and arranged a day, no sign of him on that day even though my wife stayed home especially all day. Later got a note from BG saying he called but no one was in. I suspect he didn't bother to turn up - there was no note through the door on the day. He suspected the valves (as ChrisR said).

Second engineer turned up a little after the first left for the first time having been assigned the same job card it seems. He said this was the second time this morning. Poor organisation at BG.

When first didn't turn up, we rang BG again who sent someone else around. They said they were unable to trace who the first engineer was! Poor organisation at BG - or lying to customer.

Third engineer turns up, I go through history & mention valves - he changes the motor in one valve (HW I think). Arranges to return a few days later (Monday of this week) to check. If things are still wrong he says he has a few more things he can do. System has worked properly since the fix. He returns on Mon, checks all ok & leaves again. Job done.

Cheers,
F.