No hot water but central heating ok, any advice?

[alex1987]

Hi there

We have a 3 year old Worcester Bosch greenstar r18i condensing boiler, which has been fine since we had it installed, and in fact was only serviced about 6 weeks ago.

Over the last week we have noticed that when having a shower the water struggles to get hot, and on a few occasions has actually been pretty cold. We turned down a few of the TRVs on the rads in case too much effort was going into the heating instead (we are amateurs, we have no idea!) and the next few mornings the shower was ok but not as hot as it used to be (don’t know if this actually made any difference).

I have attached pictures of the hot water cylinder which apparently is quite new according to company who fitted the boiler, as well as the pump (which another plumber fitted 3 years ago) and a couple of other bits. We haven’t adjusted any of these ever but just sharing for info. The pipes around the tank feel hot but for the last 3 hours we have turned the heating off and had hot water on, and after all that time it has only just got ‘warm’.

My wife thinks perhaps it hasn’t been great since the boiler was serviced (although we have been doing a lot of DIY since then, involving lots of washing things out so can’t be certain). Is there anything we could try before getting the gas engineers back? Is there something within the boiler which could have been accidentally changed during the service for example? No issues with heating at all. Haven’t adjusted times on the programmer lately either.

ps green and blue lights on solid whilst water or central heating are heating.

Thanks!

 

[CBW]

I think the service of the boiler is coincidental. Sounds more like a motorised valve failure. You might be able to latch the manual setting on the valve and it’ll heat up with your heating only until you can get someone out.

 

[alex1987]

Hi Chris, thanks for that. If that’s the case, where exactly is this valve - in the boiler or near tank? Is this quite common? Thanks

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

This part, common failure point on heating systems unfortunately.


Should be a small black toggle switch on the underside, this should wedge the valve open manually to allow water to flow out from both ports to the Central Heating and the Cylinder. It will keep heating the water though until the central heating thermostat switches the boiler off as the system control goes through this valve in normal operation.

 

[alex1987]

Thanks Hugh - this is really helpful, I will take a look

 

[ianmcd]

What is the thermostat on the front of the boiler set to ?