Insane Pump noise

[dale303]

You'll have to excuse the lack of the correct terminology here but I'll try to explain the problem as best I can.

We got an aging boiler/immersion heater system that seems to be powered from both and electric thermostat and a separate gas boiler in the living room.

Now there's little valve by the immersion heater that says 'hot water' and 'hot water/heating' but this stopped functioning properly about a year ago. No matter what setting you put it on, we could not heat our hot water using the gas boiler anymore. The valve just spins around without any 'lock' positions at all. No matter what position the thing is in we can not get hot water from the gas boiler (just lukewarm).

Very recently, the valve has begun to drip slightly. Nothing that couldn't be contained using a strategically placed Chinese takeaway carton. However, this afternoon, the central heating pump just went mental giving out a serious over-revving sound. I could be very wrong but it sounds as if the pump isn't pumping water but air.

Anyway, assuming it's a pressure problem (please tell me if it's not) and leaky T valve aside, how do I go about refilling the central heating system (if that's the problem)? There's so many valves in the airing cupboard, I'm unsure which ones ought to be open or closed, which ones ought to be opened for refilling and which order to do things.

Here's a crappy sketch of the layout.

Valve D is the thermostat and
Valve F is the T/Y/whatever you call it valve.

What positions should A, B, C & E be in when in normal daily use and what should I turn (and in what order) to refill the heating system?

And out of interest, where do pipes (i, ii, iii, iv) go to/come from?

 

[Slugbabydotcom]

Thats got to be the best rubbishy sketch I have ever seen. However it is still a rubbishy sketch. Couldn't you take a not so rubbishy picture or three and post that/them?

Meanwhile about the items you refer to as D F and C. Do any of them have wires coming out of them.
Something else about the rubbishy sketch .... The bit near A and B looks well wrong Maybe you could have another look at it

What I can make out is that it is likely that you have air in the system and could release it by opening the un-named vent below the 'mp' part of 'pump'

i Is the flow from your boiler
ii could be a bypass
iii Looks like the heating flow
iv Is the return

 

[dale303]

I didn't do a degree in electrical and electronic engineering without picking up some useful skills

Photoshop Elements threw a strop at me. Had the program years and the first time I needed to use it in anger, it refused. Had to use the emergency MS paint to do it which is not that more advanced than an Etch-a-Sketch.

I've even got an ancient copy of Visio but that I've only just remembered about.

Still, the more I look at it, the more I think the combination of crap sketch on top of posh illustration has some sort of perverse artistic merit.

If I took photos of everything, you wouldn't be able to work out what's going on. All the taps are in inaccessible places out of sight and touch for normal human beings.

Anyway, to the job in hand...

The A & B bit is right. It's the feeder bit that's wrong as it should be lower and is an overflow tank, not a feeder.

All red valves (A,B,C,E) are simple taps.

D is the thermostat thing with a bit of thermostatic wire stuck to the tank and has numbers on it.

F is the leaky heating/hot water switch T/Y valve thing that doesn't work.

Tried opening that vent. It hissed for a second and then stoppped. Should I see some water coming out similar to when radiators are being bled? If I should, then it's not happening. Also, I tried to bleed the radiators. Left them open ages and no water came out. Not even much in the way of hissing. A little gasp when I first opened them up and then nothing.

Anyway, neither made any difference to the noise on the pump.

 

[EliteHeat]

It sounds like the leaky/spinning thing that doesn't work anymore is a summer valve. I'm pretty sure that you can't get these anymore.

It also sounds like you may have a blocked cold feed and subsequently have an insufficiency of water lubricating your pump. There's loads on here about cold feeds.

So, I reckon that you are looking at:-

1) Resolving the pump problem and possibly replacing the pump
2) Fixing the heating/hot water diverter

 

[Agile]

I am always surprised to hear of well educated people who let parts of their heating system fail and dont bother to do anything about it for a year or two.

This is even more surprising when they could probably do it themselves or are earning over £40k p.a. and can easily afford a professional to do it for them the day after it failed.

Tony

 

[dale303]

I'm surprised that learned and experienced people like yourself make so many stupid assumptions from such little information given.

For a start, I live in a private rented flat where the landlord has full responsibility of fixing the problem. Landlords tend to have a completely different set of priorities than tennants. All they have to do is get things to a minimum standard and that's it. We had hot water, we had central heating, to the landlord that was enough. Not the right attitude but hey landlords are landlords. At least we get a bloke coming around to check the gas once a year so he's not a complete rogue.

Also, he's been trying to sell but at his price, not the market price so has kept us on 6 month leases for the last year and a half. There's very little incentive for me to pay xxx amount to replace a central heating system (that still 'kind of works') when there's the potential that I'll only have a few months use out of it.

If I owned the place however, the whole system would have been completely replaced years ago.

Now it's actually broken rather than 'partially functional', I can ask our landlord to sort it out. How long it's going to take to sort it out is another question entirely so came here to see what could be done myself BEFORE call in the landlord/professionals.

I only have 2 months left on the current contract so if he won't get it fixed, it would be far cheaper for me to buy a couple of electric heaters and stuff the central heating. Even if I stay an extra 6 months, summer will be upon us and I won't need the central heating again until October by which time I'll definitely be out of here.

And what makes you think I'm on 40k? I'm currently in a start-up business and for the moment, whilst things are gearing up, I'm on around £14k, not £40k.

 

[Agile]

You could have said that you are in a rented flat. £40k is a reasonable salary for an experienced person with a degree in electronics. ( See jobs in IEE mag! )

I dont think my assumptions were stupid, they were just based on the paucity of info you had given.

Your Landlord has a responsibility to provide you with reasonable services and most tenants I go to will pay us and just deduct the cost from the rent. Legally they should give the landlord a few days to sort it out first before calling us but many just want it fixed the same day.

If you dont want it fixed by the Landlord why dont you give him say five days to do it and then call someone yourself?

Tony