Please help me understand the central heating :)

[EAST61]

84 quid seems to be the in-joke around here.

As soon as someone asks for a price someone says it’ll cost 84 quid and everyone wets themselves laughing.

 

[RoseofSharon1]

Looool, I guessed as much...

I just don't really know how much to consider when getting quotes...

 

[EAST61]

Your best option is to ask for recommendations from trusted friends/neighbours.

Anyone who gives you a price over the internet is an idiot. There are too many unknowns.

 

[stem]

Recently the old central heating programmer started behaving erratically (turning itself on and off) and was disconnected by an engineer.

I know you have tried to contact the engineer, but I would be inclined to keep trying. He will know what he has done and will be able to reconnect it quickly, someone else will have to start searching from scratch.

If he doesn't want to come out you could simply ask him what he has done? it may be as simple as reconnecting a single wire somewhere. Even if you don't want to reconnect it yourself, it will help anyone you employ fix it more quickly.

 

[RoseofSharon1]

I know you have tried to contact the engineer, but I would be inclined to keep trying. He will know what he has done and will be able to reconnect it quickly, someone else will have to start searching from scratch.

If he doesn't want to come out you could simply ask him what he has done? it may be as simple as reconnecting a single wire somewhere. Even if you don't want to reconnect it yourself, it will help anyone you employ fix it more quickly.

I think you might be right..

 

[RoseofSharon1]

Ok, so I managed to take some photos of the water cylinder set up, any of these responsible for the perpetual hot water?

 

[dilalio]

Probably.

 

[Johnmdc]

Your cylinder thermostat is set to 90° it will never reach that but keep trying that is why it won't turn off.
Turning it down to 60° should cure it.

 

[RoseofSharon1]

Thanks everyone for your responses! Sorry for the delayed reply, I was working

Your cylinder thermostat is set to 90° it will never reach that but keep trying that is why it won't turn off.
Turning it down to 60° should cure it.

I turned the thermostat down to 60 so hopefully this will help

I tried getting in contact with the original electrician and still nothing from him. Turns out the backplate of the new programmer is standard so I just slipped the new one on and it turned on.

I am hoping to bleed the radiators tomorrow because at the moment heat is only going to one radiator and the rest are cold. The pipes going out from the boiler are hot but the pipes to the radiators are cold this is such a process!!

 

[dilalio]

Don’t think bleeding the rads is going to resolve the issue, I’m afraid!

 

[RoseofSharon1]

Don’t think bleeding the rads is going to resolve the issue, I’m afraid!

Hi dilalio, any suggestions?

Also, I just noticed this about the boiler...it is selected to "gravity". The timer (previous and present) was set to fully pumped and I thought the red item in the image above is the pump?

 

[dilalio]

Your need a decent heating engineer to visit... not an electrician.

 

[stem]

Turns out the backplate of the new programmer is standard so I just slipped the new one on....

The backplate may be standard, but the wiring terminals have different functions from model to model. But you may have struck lucky and got one that has the same configuration, but if it still doesn't work, how do you know? I did warn you.

Yes it's a standard backplate. But not all programmers use the same terminals for the same function. Having said that, yours is by far the most common format with terminal (3) for 'Hot Water On' and terminal (4) for 'Central Heating On' just make sure that you buy one that has the same configuration.

....and it turned on.

That's pretty amazing considering that you told us....

Recently the old central heating programmer started behaving erratically (turning itself on and off) and was disconnected by an engineer.

 

[RoseofSharon1]

The backplate may be standard, but the wiring terminals have different functions from model to model. But you may have struck lucky and got one that has the same configuration, but if it still doesn't work, how do you know? I did warn you.


That's pretty amazing considering that you told us....

I suspected that he had not done anything and him recently being MIA made me more suspicious... So I had it checked by a plumber who said they were exactly the same and I could place the new one straight on top. The radiators are working now, turns out the TRVs were stuck, once they were freed, water started flowing nicely

 

[dilalio]

So a plumber visited and sorted it.
And bleeding the rads wouldn’t have done the job - as I suspected.
Simple when you’ve been shown eh!