Hello All,
I've done a search on this forum and this seems to be a bit of a common issue, but unclear what is going on with our ageing boiler.
Moved into a house with a 17 yr old Ideal Elan boiler with short cycling issue. Now from what I can see some changes to system have been made including adding radiators over the years.
These are the times the boiler takes to enter a short cycle when thermo dial is set to 5 on the boiler panel.
HW - 8-9 minutes.
HW & CH - About 50 mins.
After a short cycle completes, it repeats after a few minutes on both HW/CH until the boiler is turned off. All rads do heat up and no problems with the HW either.
The thermostat dial on the boiler is turned up to 5. If it is turned down lower the cycling starts to occur sooner. Just before the boiler shuts down you can hear slight boiling coming from the exchanger.
Setup summary
------------------
* Ideal Elan 2 Boiler.
* Grundfos Pump - set to maximum pump flow.
* About 18 rads.
* TRVs on all rads - set to max open.
* Wall thermostat (Danfoss) in hallway - functions correctly.
* System drained, cleaned with Fernox cleaner, left for 6 weeks, drained again, refilled and Fernox F1 protector added in Jan 2011.
* One rad removed to look for sludge - cleaned out - didn't appear to have that much sludge in it.
* All airlocks removed from system using the bleed valves.
* The above measures have had no effect on the short cycling timings or cured it, although the system is now cleaner.
Now I have no idea where to go next to troubleshoot this, the pump appear to be fine, but I have some doubts about the various boiler thermostats and perhaps the water flow level speed into the boiler. For example would balancing the system improve the flow back to the boiler?
I'll try to provide more info later (like model number), as I'm away from home at the moment, but if anyone has any good starting points, or has tackled a problem like this before, would be extremely grateful for your input.
I've done a search on this forum and this seems to be a bit of a common issue, but unclear what is going on with our ageing boiler.
Moved into a house with a 17 yr old Ideal Elan boiler with short cycling issue. Now from what I can see some changes to system have been made including adding radiators over the years.
These are the times the boiler takes to enter a short cycle when thermo dial is set to 5 on the boiler panel.
HW - 8-9 minutes.
HW & CH - About 50 mins.
After a short cycle completes, it repeats after a few minutes on both HW/CH until the boiler is turned off. All rads do heat up and no problems with the HW either.
The thermostat dial on the boiler is turned up to 5. If it is turned down lower the cycling starts to occur sooner. Just before the boiler shuts down you can hear slight boiling coming from the exchanger.
Setup summary
------------------
* Ideal Elan 2 Boiler.
* Grundfos Pump - set to maximum pump flow.
* About 18 rads.
* TRVs on all rads - set to max open.
* Wall thermostat (Danfoss) in hallway - functions correctly.
* System drained, cleaned with Fernox cleaner, left for 6 weeks, drained again, refilled and Fernox F1 protector added in Jan 2011.
* One rad removed to look for sludge - cleaned out - didn't appear to have that much sludge in it.
* All airlocks removed from system using the bleed valves.
* The above measures have had no effect on the short cycling timings or cured it, although the system is now cleaner.
Now I have no idea where to go next to troubleshoot this, the pump appear to be fine, but I have some doubts about the various boiler thermostats and perhaps the water flow level speed into the boiler. For example would balancing the system improve the flow back to the boiler?
I'll try to provide more info later (like model number), as I'm away from home at the moment, but if anyone has any good starting points, or has tackled a problem like this before, would be extremely grateful for your input.