Motorised Valve locations for zoned heating

[JEB1709]

Hi - first time poster.

After some opinion from professionals having had mixed input from different plumbers. We bought our house in 2016, its a 2008 build 4 bed detached. 2080ft2/193.5m2 GIFA. We have a Vaillant ecotec plus in the utility room, with an expansion vessel in the kitchen cupboard, a vented cylinder upstairs in the airing cupboard and a cold water header tank in the loft.

We thought it was odd on the day we got the keys and the previous owner said 'by the way, the upstairs heating wont come on unless the downstairs is on, but its ok as the heat rises anyway and upstairs is always hot'

So basically the Honeywell dial thermostat in the hall downstairs controls a danfoss 3 way valve in the upstairs cupboard (the one circled in green). This is the main 'call for heat' to the boiler.

In addition to this, we have a battery operated danfoss digital thermostat on the wall in the master bedroom with its own built in timer. When this 'calls for heat' it is opening a separate motorised valve (shown in yellow) which is located on the pipework AFTER the 3 way valve but this is pointless unless the green one is already open and calling for heat too (or so I'm told).

Does this sound/look right to you? One plumber said its fine, the other said it looks like an afterthought and thinks the system may have been modified to satisfy building regs. He said its no coincidence that of the 30 houses on this estate built at the same time, this is the only one above 2000ft2 and he thinks building control may have wanted to see zoned heating before they signed it off.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
J

pic attached in reply below

 

[JEB1709]

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[ianmcd]

You have a total dogs dinner, you need a proper heating engineer to sort this mess out, as a rule of thumb when you see plastic push fit fittings on a heating system, equals, inexperienced cowboy install, if you are going to use zone control you can not mix three port and two port valves, it is possible to do but way beyond the realms of any house builder

 

[JEB1709]

I feared somebody many say that, the house builder has a pretty decent reputation too but I'm not seeing it here. The second guy who looked at it said pretty much the same. We have a reasonably sized house in a nice area but its built using the cheapest components. We have this shoddy heating set up and terrible electric showers in both our bathrooms, its a joke. I'm contemplating having the cylinder and all this pipework ripped out and replaced with a decent sized pressurised cylinder and proper zone control. It will also mean we can get the showers replaced with ones that actually wet your body and free up space in the loft by losing the header tank - we are contemplating a loft conversion a few years down the line also.

 

[ianmcd]

I feared somebody many say that, the house builder has a pretty decent reputation too but I'm not seeing it here. The second guy who looked at it said pretty much the same. We have a reasonably sized house in a nice area but its built using the cheapest components. We have this shoddy heating set up and terrible electric showers in both our bathrooms, its a joke. I'm contemplating having the cylinder and all this pipework ripped out and replaced with a decent sized pressurised cylinder and proper zone control. It will also mean we can get the showers replaced with ones that actually wet your body and free up space in the loft by losing the header tank - we are contemplating a loft conversion a few years down the line also.

It is not that bad lad, a decent heating engineer will be able to sort everything for you, sadly this is a lot more common that you would imagine, new builds are a bloody nightmare, dont think that cheap is best, employ a decent engineer who will sort it for you