Heating pump question

[TezNic]

Hi There,
I'm new to this form and a novice in heating and boilers so please forgive me if this sounds silly.

We have moved into a new house with a oil/wood combination boiler, we can choose either to burn wood or oil.

It's an old boiler but seems to be working ok. When we moved into the house we was told if you want the heating on you must manually turn the pump on.

My question is, can the pump be left on all the time even if the heating is on a timer? So the heating is on and off throughout the day but pump is always on?

Also the pump is hot, not boiling hot, you can touch it but wouldn't want to leave your hands on it over night. Is this normal?

Thanks
Terry

 

[Jackrae]

Assuming the pump is pumping hot water at around 60 to 80 degrees C, and electrical inefficiency adds a few more watts of heat, it seems reasonable that a totally enclosed pump motor runs hot.

There's no problem with running a pump 24 hours, if you don't mind the cost. Generally it costs £1/year for every watt of electrical load running 24/7. So a pump rated at 100 watts will cost about £100/year to run if running 24/7