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OK, so I recognise that there have been posts on similar issues so apologies in advance if we're going over old ground. I simply cannot get my head around the way my heating is behaving.
Quick description of the setup:-
Boiler is downstairs, a "Glowworm Ultimate" - old. Installed 80s/90s I think. Yes, an easy reply would be "get a new one" but insofar as we're talking about it working mechanically, it works, and was recently serviced. It comes on, I do get hot water and my radiators do heat up, when they want to (see below).
Hot Water Tank on the first floor. Has its own white thermostat on the side but I don't usually touch this. There is also an electrical immersion heater in it with a switch but again, I don't usually have that on as my HW requirement is quite low.
Controller is a Lifestyle LP522 - again, not too new. Found it quite fiddly in relation to timing etc so for now, and to hopefully eliminate some possibilities in relation to the problem, I have left this at "ON" both for CH and for HW.
Thermostat is a wired Drayton 30002 in the living room. This was installed professionally about 6 months ago, new. I've checked how this has this been wired, Red in COM, Black in ON, which I understand to be correct. Display is fine, batteries checked.
There is a motorised valve (white box) with "WMH" on it connected to the boiler. This seems to be working, I can hear the motor and see the valve position moving from time to time.
The problem -
1. House gets cold.
2. I turn the thermostat up and it clicks, and it calls for heat (the flame symbol comes on). However, the boiler does not fire up at that point.
3. Radiators do not warm up, despite thermostat calling for heat.
4. Several hours later, when I am not expecting it, the boiler may fire up.
5. Again, when I am not expecting it, and possibly several hours later, my radiators will heat up, when I don't necessarily need them to.
In my last house I had a combi boiler and when the thermostat clicked on, as I recall the boiler would fire up straight away. Within 10-15 minutes the radiators would warm up. That's basically what I expected to happen here.
Now since I have a HW tank, what I understand should happen is that when there is a call for heat, hot water is immediately or at least fairly quickly pushed around the radiators to warm the house up. If there is not enough water in the radiators at a hot enough temperature, the boiler fires up to heat more. Maybe I've got that wrong.
This would explain the boiler not firing up immediately if there is already enough hot water in the system, but to me it does not explain why my radiators are not heating up once the thermostat calls for heat. If it's not the room thermostat determining when hot water is pumped around the radiators, what else is it?
As for the boiler firing up when there is no call for heat from the thermostat, that's probably less of an issue, except for the fact of me maybe using up gas when I might not need it.
Sorry for the long post, I thought the detail would help, any thoughts/advice would be appreciated. It might be easy enough to just get a new boiler and a new controller, but I'd like to eliminate everything else if possible otherwise I may end up with the same issue again anyway.
Thanks in advance.
Quick description of the setup:-
Boiler is downstairs, a "Glowworm Ultimate" - old. Installed 80s/90s I think. Yes, an easy reply would be "get a new one" but insofar as we're talking about it working mechanically, it works, and was recently serviced. It comes on, I do get hot water and my radiators do heat up, when they want to (see below).
Hot Water Tank on the first floor. Has its own white thermostat on the side but I don't usually touch this. There is also an electrical immersion heater in it with a switch but again, I don't usually have that on as my HW requirement is quite low.
Controller is a Lifestyle LP522 - again, not too new. Found it quite fiddly in relation to timing etc so for now, and to hopefully eliminate some possibilities in relation to the problem, I have left this at "ON" both for CH and for HW.
Thermostat is a wired Drayton 30002 in the living room. This was installed professionally about 6 months ago, new. I've checked how this has this been wired, Red in COM, Black in ON, which I understand to be correct. Display is fine, batteries checked.
There is a motorised valve (white box) with "WMH" on it connected to the boiler. This seems to be working, I can hear the motor and see the valve position moving from time to time.
The problem -
1. House gets cold.
2. I turn the thermostat up and it clicks, and it calls for heat (the flame symbol comes on). However, the boiler does not fire up at that point.
3. Radiators do not warm up, despite thermostat calling for heat.
4. Several hours later, when I am not expecting it, the boiler may fire up.
5. Again, when I am not expecting it, and possibly several hours later, my radiators will heat up, when I don't necessarily need them to.
In my last house I had a combi boiler and when the thermostat clicked on, as I recall the boiler would fire up straight away. Within 10-15 minutes the radiators would warm up. That's basically what I expected to happen here.
Now since I have a HW tank, what I understand should happen is that when there is a call for heat, hot water is immediately or at least fairly quickly pushed around the radiators to warm the house up. If there is not enough water in the radiators at a hot enough temperature, the boiler fires up to heat more. Maybe I've got that wrong.
This would explain the boiler not firing up immediately if there is already enough hot water in the system, but to me it does not explain why my radiators are not heating up once the thermostat calls for heat. If it's not the room thermostat determining when hot water is pumped around the radiators, what else is it?
As for the boiler firing up when there is no call for heat from the thermostat, that's probably less of an issue, except for the fact of me maybe using up gas when I might not need it.
Sorry for the long post, I thought the detail would help, any thoughts/advice would be appreciated. It might be easy enough to just get a new boiler and a new controller, but I'd like to eliminate everything else if possible otherwise I may end up with the same issue again anyway.
Thanks in advance.
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