Is my plumbers advice correct- Faulty Central Heating System

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Lancashire
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Hi guys

Here is the system:

Vented system.
Boiler is Ideal Concord WRS 255A, 55,000 btu
Gravity feed hot water.
Pumped central heating, the pump fitted on the return pipe.
I am told the boiler has one heat exchanger shared by both
the hot water & central heating.
There is not a 2 port valve or thermostat on the hot water circuit.
Central heating pipework is follows: to & from the boiler in 22mm,
then splits off to 15mm, then splits to 8mm micobore near upstairs
rads, and 8mm again dropping down to ground floor rads.

For a house built only 25 years ago, this system is from the ark, no wonder the builder went bust !

Bought the house 2 1/2 years ago, the heating has never worked properly. The best it has managed is any 3 rads you like out of 8, the 3 rads getting hottish, but not as hot as they should be.

Fed up with soot coming down the chimney and blocking the gas fire, in January I called in the guy to sweep the flue. He condemned the gas fire,
swept the flue, took my cash and left me cold!

Ok, so I buy a new gas fire, call in the corgi man, but after 2 visits and countless phone calls, he tells me he can't fit the fire as the pre-cast flue isn't deep enough (that bloody builder again) !

So, I was planning to attack the central heating myself before xmas, but at the end of November. whilst refitting my kitchen, I made an effort to cut off 3 fingers with a circular saw, fortunately not totally successfully, but they are still not really up to a major plumbing job.

So, the plumber is here, I ask him to quote to sort out the central heating.
The rads were all single panel, no convectors, and the microbore feed & returns were both connected to one end of the rads. The rads had pipes running through the bottom which were corroded, I stripped one a couple of years ago to flush it.

We decide to replace all the rads. I would have liked to replace all the microbore with 15mm, but with cash being tight, I take the advice of my plumber, so we stick with it.

This week he does the job, 9 new rads piped up, fills the system fixes the odd leak, and off we go!

Or so it should be. Wednesday he spends 5-6 hours bleeding the rads, the pump, he could have tried my veins if I thought it would help. After lots of discussion with myself, the plumber & his plumber mates, we decide that the pump is goosed. I am not convinced, as I borrowed one a couple of years ago with no improvement, but ok, it wasn't a new one.

Thursday morning 9 am he arrives with the new pump. I should be in work, but we could be done & dusted in an hour. At 11.45 I have to go to work.

At 3 pm I get a phone call from the plumber, he is having a conference with his 2 plumber buddies, so I go back home, arriving at the same time as my wife, who is nearly in tears at the sight of 3 plumbers vans outside the house.

We are now back to square one, 3, no, maybe 4 rads will work. They have convectors now, so we are getting a little more heat out of them.

The plumbers conference convenes, and after a while, white smoke signals are seen over the hills of the Ribble Valley, a decision has been made.

They tell me that as there is no valve on the hot water side, the hot water is stealing all the hot water from the boiler, seems logical as this is running in nice fat pipe, compared to the starved central heating circuit.

They give me two choices:

a) fit a valve on the hot water circuit, a thermostat, then call in the sparky as I am not allowed to do it.

b) fit a nice shiny new combi.

Option b is preferred by all, myself included, but a flue kit is also required, and it becomes nearly 2k, on top of the 1700 odd already spent, so now I am hitting loan territory as well.

I tell the lads I will let them know over the weekend. Trying to get to sleep last night, it strikes me that the theory has holes in it.
If the pump is pumping water out of the central heating circuit, then water has to come out of the boiler to replace it, or otherwise there is one hell of an air leak !

Any comments, theories, advice much welcomed.

PS

My plumber is a really nice young lad, corgi registered, in his first year of business, apart from the fact I have no heating he did a nice job. And I paid him. His plumber mates have been around the block a few times and probably know there stuff, I'd just like to hear a few other opinions!

Cheers

Cold in the Ribble Valley
 
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Is there a gate valve or some other means to limit the flow through the coil of the HW cylinder?

The combination of gravity HW and microbore on an open-vented system is a recipe for disaster, especially as it gets on a bit! Sounds like at least some of the microbore is still partly blocked.

On the face of it, if the water passing the pump (presumably on the Return pipe to the boiler) is hot, then the rads should be hot too.

It's not a one-pipe CH system too is it? (to add to your other troubles!)
 
A cheaper option would be to put a lockshield gate valve on the return of the cylinder, then for test purposes, close it fully.

This will isolate the cylinder, and you can see if the rads start to heat up.

It sounds to me like its likely to be the cylinder stealing all the heat, but could also be a blockage in the microbore pipework, or both.

Why not try the lockshield gate valve as its only a few quid from merchant and no electrics to do, and try turning off the radiators which ARE getting heat and see if this gets the heat to the cold ones.

Many plumbers think that "putting in a combi" will solve everything. It sometimes does, sometimes doesn't.
 
mmmm, an option which not only costs £2000 extra, but also means you end up with a Combi?

I wonder why they don't just fit a 3-way valve? I must have missed something.
 
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Thanks guys

There is no gate valve on the hot water side.
The return pipe gets a little warm, not hot.
But the good news, at least it is a 2 pipe system!
I agree about the gate valve though, I am considering
fitting one myself this weekend, as you say to test if the
rads heat up.
They are selling the combi idea on the basis that it will be
much more efficient than the existing one, which is of course
true, they are suggesting 100,000 btu, which will presumably
give a decent hot water flow. A lot of dosh though
 
Or maybe...

They are selling the combi idea on the basis that it will be
much more money
 
Check the flow rate of the boiler they suggest to you. Some combi's may be 100k btu, but still have a comparatively low flow rate. Check Glow worm 38CXI, Worcester 35-40 CDI if you want good flow.

Make sure your mains pressure is up to this by the way :D

Personally, I reckon if you put this valve on to reduce the flow to the cylinder it'll solve your problems. If not, run some Ferroquest in the system for a week and then get your bloke to powerflush it. Thats gotta sort it out.
 
They are suggesting a Baxi, 105E I think.
Mains pressure is ok here, but I think I will try
the lockshield valve first.

Thanks
 
£2,000 extra for a combi? You'd have to pay me a lot more than that to accept one in my house ;)
 
They tell me that as there is no valve on the hot water side, the hot water is stealing all the hot water from the boiler,
This is plain wrong. There are hundreds of thousands of similar systems to yours (gravity hot water circuit, pumped CH circuit, microbore pipes) that work perfectly well. I think your plumbers are lacking in experience in these matters - be careful about accepting their advice.

The fault probably lies with the CH pipework. The pipework may be clogged with corrosion deposits, and the 8mm may be undersized for the new rads anyway. You should also check that the boiler connections are correct.

Irrespective of the fact that the HW circuit is not the problem, you should take the opportunity to upgrade this by making it pumped and using a motorised valve (or two) and thermostats to control flow to HW and/or CH. It won't solve your CH problem, but will improve the efficiency of the HW side.
 
Yes, Chris is right. I had managed to somehow miss the fact that its gravity HW. also, if the microbore is blocked, then the boiler may be turning off prematurely on its thermostat as the heat can't go anywhere.
 
Things are livening up now !

Again I agree, gravity hot water systems are crap,
I guess you are suggesting we keep the existing
boiler but upgrade the design.
ACOperson is correct, the boiler frequently cuts out as the
heat is not travelling.

So is the consensus now that we have blocked pipes?
 
If you really trust this plumber then ask how much he would charge for a powerflush. If he does it right, this should sort all this out.

By doing it right, I mean:

- circulating chemicals for up to a week before the flush
- running the p/flush pump around the system, then through every radiator in turn, one at a time - at least 10 mins each rad.
- Once mobilised, dumping all the deposits out of the system - again this means doing each radiator in turn.
- When he does the radiators he would have to isolate the gravity HW circuit or this will cause the rads not to be properly cleaned.
 

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