Honeywell v4073a1039 motorised 3 port valve: should moving lever to manual allow flow?

[MrInteractive]

Your point No7 in the Symptoms :
Remove the large silver disc in the centre of the pump.
Will get a small amount of water leaking but should only be a little.
Once removed, you might be able to see the pump spindle.
With your heating/ hot water being called, the pump spindle should spin.

This is my pump a CE CP53.

Can I just unscrew the octaganal nut to see the spindle?

And if it is rotating, does that definitely mean that it is pumping?

Could there be a blockage somewhere?

About 6 months ago, the water level in my system dropped because the cistern ballcock got stuck, and the lower water level caused some sloshing and gargling noises. I fixed the ballcock and everything seemed to return to normal. Is there a possibility this incident caused of contamination of the system and some debris caused a blockage . As I said above, until very recently banging on the valve caused everything to work for a short period, do blockages come and go? and can pumps work intermittently?

I do seem to be getting quite loud noises including some gargling noises, from the pump when it is first switched on, then after a few minutes things quieten down.

 

[MrInteractive]

There is quite a good video on youtube about the valve

 

[MrInteractive]

Apparently unscrewing the knob in the centre of the picture of the pump causes it to engage with the drive motor and so it will rotate with the pump motor once the pump is on. So as suggested by 75Pete above I will check this is working.

https://www.plumbcenter.co.uk/wcsst...ang.all/ti/on/CPumps_Compact_Installation.pdf

 

[MrInteractive]

Well after unscrewing the knob and switching on the HW and CH, nothing happened, no noise was emanating from the pump and the knob turned very very slowly. Then after some prods and pokes, the thing eventually came alive and the knob rotated at a fast speed. But nothing was happening to the boiler, it wasn't being switched on.

When I first switched on there was a deep gurgle from the hot water tank. I did have a leak in the ground floor CH system about 8 years ago that was fixed, but the thought there is another terrifies me. There is no sign of one that I can determine, unless the occasional gurgle from the HW tank count as a sign and I can hear the motion of bubbles sometimes near the pump.

Also a small amount of water that was highly blackened emerged from the area around the knob, but I have checked my radiators on the ground floor and the water there is perfectly clear, so the inhibitor must surely being doing its job. The water hasn't been drained for about 8 years since the leak was fixed and a new boiler was installed along with the motorised valve and requisite plumbing.

The fact that the pump moved slowly until I prodded it, is that bad?

It turns out I do have a spare pump that was only used for a year prior to the installation of the new boiler. It is a DAB VA55/130

It seems from the specs to draw less power for more revs, and presumably that relates to the pump volume. It also has a higher revolutions

http://www.dabpumps.de/sites/dabpumps.de/files/2016-03/VA_VB_VD_TS_ENG.pdf

So I have some questions related to this
1) Is it a bad idea to use old pumps even if they were only used for a year. This one has a slight layer of powdered rust on some of the inner pipework which seems easily removed by rubbing.
2) Is this a suitable replacement for the CE pump. Oddly the CE CP53 pump is more expensive and seems to be of lower performance.

 

[MrInteractive]

Though looking at the specs, I see the DABs pump is to be used on the return part of the circuit, the CE pump specs doen't mention placement in the circuit. On my system the pump is on the output of the boiler which conforms to the Y plan model as indicated below

 

[oilhead]

I don't need you tube videos re 3 port valves. If your boiler is notswitching on, but the pump is, then the valve is probably working. If the pump was seized, it is possible your boiler has tripped the overheat stat and will not start until reset. You have a fault finding chart for the boiler, and also for the y plan valve. Follow these in a logical sequence, and you will solve your problem. This is how professionals work.

 

[Daveydub]

The boiler did come on briefly before as if there was no circulation. Are you saying that it now does not or is it simply still hot therefore didn't fire up. Sounds like maybe water deficiency, blocked cold feed perhaps. If you can drain water out somewhere, does the header tank re-fill?

 

[MrInteractive]

New summary of my position

1) When the boiler is switched on there is a brief burst of activity and then after about 30 seconds it stops and the outlet pipe becomes warm. The pump continues to make a sound
2) While the boiler comes on there is quite a lot of noise from within the boiler, but also from the pump, I think I can hear air, so I am not sure if the air from boiler os making the pump make a noise.
3) I have checked the pump is rotating, by unlocking the octaganal nut, although as I said, it took several prods for it to get to full speed. The pump usually starts promptly. Can a rotating pump not pump?
4) The Honeywell valve does not behave correctly when power removed, as described in the video, when the manual open lever is moved to manual, it should offer resistance and should spring back, it does neither. I have managed to go to a plumbing shop and play with a new valve and it behaves as described in the video, and unlike mine.
5) I decided to see if the pump was pumping stuff around the CH circuit by opening the radiator bleed valves, there was no difference with the system completely off. This was while I could hear the pump rotating. Could the valve have closed the CH option, so no water was flowing.
6) While the pump is throbbing, the outlet pipe of the boiler is hot, but the the water next to the input of the pump is not, some 5 feet away, the pipe on the exit of the pump is quite warm, as though the pump is heating the water, it is very hot.
7) The problems only started when I switched the CH on.


Oilhead thanks for the suggestions, I will check the fault finder in the boiler manual which was hidden away. As I say, after prodding the pump knob did rotate at the proper speed, so can it rotate without pumping? Or can the impeller break from the spindle?

Daveydub
If the boiler has not been on for a few hours, which is now almost all the time it
1) Fires up, lots of fan noise and light comes on, the pump starts, then there is a gurgle and the sound of bubbles coming from the boiler which is immediately replciated by the pump. The the boiler heating light goes out, the outlet from the boiler becomes hot, and the pump continues, but the hot pipe sensation never reaches the pimp some 5 feet upwards, my boiler is on the ground floor, the pump is in the airing cupboard directly above.

This is driving me nuts.
I have evidence the pump is working, the rotating knob and the noise and I have evidence the pump isn't working ( no water from radiator bleeds, though this may have been caused by the honeywell valve refusing to open the CH circuit and that hot water is not making its way from boiler outlet to the pump.

And I have firm evidence that the Honeywell valve is not behaving as it should ( refusing to return to auto and no resistance to moving lever to manual )

I will check out the troubleshooter for the boiler as suggested by oilhead which I hadn't considered before.

 

[MrInteractive]

The boiler did come on briefly before as if there was no circulation. Are you saying that it now does not or is it simply still hot therefore didn't fire up. Sounds like maybe water deficiency, blocked cold feed perhaps. If you can drain water out somewhere, does the header tank re-fill?

Yes I can several drain points one for the radiator system and one just below the boiler. I have the sockets for the square drain plugs, so I could try that.

So presumably you are expecting
1) Water to come out of the drain plugs in all scenarios
1) The header tank to drop, if I hold the ballcock up or
2) No drop in the header tank, in which case there is a blockage.

The feed from the header tank to the boiler is pretty direct.

Perhaps another way would be to overfill the header tank by pulling up the ballcock, and then draining the radiator on ground floor using the drain plug and expecting to see the header tank drop to the point where the ballcock kicks in.

 

[MrInteractive]

I would really like to know if a rotating pump, as indicated by the rotating knob when unscrewed, can fail to pump?

Can the impeller become detached from the shaft, because I am getting very smooth whirring noises now, and no throbbing from the pipework.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Can the impeller become detached from the shaft, because I am getting very smooth whirring noises now, and no throbbing from the pipework.

Yes, equally, the vains can block.

 

[MrInteractive]

Dan, thank you very very much for that info.

Assuming I have a problem with the 3 way valve, and it is stuck on HW only, is there an easy way to see if water is flowing around the HW system?

I have established from opening the bleed screws on the radiators with programmer in CH mode that there is no flow through them with the CH selected even with the pump throbbing.

I can extract the pump from the system and have a look at, could I dismantle it to see the veins and also to see whether it is in good order?

 

[MrInteractive]

In fact I might remove the pump and see if it can pump water by attaching some pipework and fittings and feed from a large bucket of water! That would be a definitive test!

 

[MrInteractive]

I don't understand the disparity in price between a DABS pump va55/130

http://www.dabpumps.de/sites/dabpumps.de/files/2016-03/VA_VB_VD_TS_ENG.pdf

and a seemingly very similar spec Grundfos 15-50/60

are so different in price, one is £36 the other £90. I know that the Grundfos meets some new efficiency spec, but is that the only cause?

Surely the brand can't be responsible for the price difference?


As I have an old functioning DABs pump is there any reason I could not use it to replace my possibly non-functioning Circulating Pumps CP53?

 

[Alec_t]

Can the impeller become detached from the shaft

In an old pump (brand/model unknown) I had to replace, the impeller was only magnetically coupled to the motor, through a waterproof diaphrgm. So the motor (dry) could spin even if the impeller (wet) was jammed.