Problem with central heating when water not being heated

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I recently swapped out my faulty boiler with a worcester bosch 24ri my wife's brother who is a plumber but has experience of replacing boilers. We also changed the room thermostat. It has a 3 way honeywell motorised valve. Controller is a Drayton 7. All works fine apart from the following that i have found through testing trial and error. This is with both hot water and heating set to 'on' on the Programmer. Hot water will not pass through to the radiators UNLESS the Hot Water Cyclinder Thermostat signals that it also needs hot water. If the Cyclinder thermostat is at tempreture then water will not pass through to Radiators even though the room thermostat is clicking to say that the room is colder than its setting. As soon as i run a bath with that condition, and then the Hot water cylinder thermostat then kicks in as cold water enters the cyclinder, then water also passes through to the radiators as well. I think it is either a fault part or a wiring problem. Please help!
 
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Sounds like a wiring problem. You need a 3 wire + earth cable from the cylinder thermostat back to the junction box to power the radiator circuit when the HW is satisfied.

Or it could be the motor in the 3-port valve has failed.

Is the H/W valve existing or installed when the new boiler was fitted?
 
suggest problem is related to midposition valve.
Could be wiring! ie no power on grey wire when selecting CH only.
Or could be motor or if motor is ok and valve moves to CH only position then most likely a faulty micro switch.
You need to check grey wire under two separate conditions. CH on and HW OFF grey should be live.
HW on and CH off grey should become live when HW has been satisfied (but not before).
The grey provides the power to take valve from mid position onwards so if HW is not on, a wire comes from the programmer (HW OFF terminal)
If the HW is on along with CH the valve stays at mid point till HW is satisfied. When this occurs the power at the cylinder stat is diverted to the grey. (The other supply from HW OFF having been cut off, because HW is not OFF)
I had similar problem which turned out to be faulty microswitch, but had to replace the actuator head

There's plenty of information on mid positon valves on this forum.
:rolleyes:
 
Thanks for the quick advice chaps. Your help is really appreciated as this is driving me mad! I am a PBX telecoms engineer by trade so although not a layman as such with wiring i have no real experience with Electrical testing as such. Probably just about enough knowledge to be dangerous.

Reading the advice of both posts, what i think i will do then is to swap out the cyclinder thrmostat that is existing as it is really old, and i have just bought a Honeywell L641 so that i will then have honeywell valve / room stat and cylinder stat so i know that i have wired it correctly following the wiring diagram that came with the Honeywell Valve. I can follow the wiring diagram accurately and know i have it all wired to the correct points. The only part of the wiring that i cannot gaurantee is the drayton Programmer, but i found a helful sheet on the web that compared wiring points between a drayton Tempus 7 and a honeywell st699 so i think i have got that right? Fair to say?

Then i will use my meter to carry out a continiuty test on all the wires between the cylinder thermostat and the wiring centre so i know that they are all fine.

Giblets - the Honeywell Valve was fitted about 3 months before the boiler started leaking dangerous gases and had to be replaced, so it is new. It is a honeywell 4073A motorised mid position valve. However when we replaced the boiler and it was wired in we were getting a short circuiting or clicking noise from this other box on the wall that had 2 x multicore wires going in and out of it from the wiring centre. It had a big fuse inside and looked really old. The old boiler was a Potterton 50, dont know if that helps you identify what it might have been. Anyway, because of this and the fact that the valve wiring diagram didnt have this in it i took everything out, isolated this and removed it, then followed the wiring diagram as best as i could to connect it all back again. Is it possible that something could have been damaged?

Giblets - also if the motor has failed would the heating work at all. what i mean by that is that it is not just stuck on letting both hot water and heating through. for example if the programmer is set to hot water on only, the heating doesnt ever come on, so i would read into that it is moving correctly inside, but just not being told what to do at the right times because of wiring perhaps? Maybe that is not correct but seems logical?

Mandate - Is the microswitch inside the programmer? Where is the actuator head also? I will do my best to carry out the tests that you have suggested adjusting the thermostats on the hot water cylinder thermo to create the wiring conditions you have suggested to test to see if it is as it should be in line with what you have said with a multimeter and get back to you.

Guys thanks for your help. If i do solve this...i will be doing cartwheels down Carshalton High Street, it has been bugging me for so long!

Another question for anyone that can help - The earth wire has been cut back short off of the 4 wire cable between the room thermostat and the wiring centre, could that be causing an issue and will that make a difference? Should i try and join and extend it to connect it up?
 
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The actuator head is the top part of the mid positon valve and within are two microswitches. The head can be replaced without touching the valve body. which houses the actual valve.
Within the head is a spring loaded quadrant, so the motor only drives in one direction.
With HW only the valve is constantly in the rest position.
With CH only the valve is supposed to move the full range and nearing the end of the range one of the microswitches is triggered to give an output to start the boiler through the orange wire.
So basically if you dont get boiler working under this condition it is usually down to microswitch, or failure of motor to move quadrant fully across, or the wiring.
When both HW and CH are selected, the valve moves to the mid positon due to the room stat providing power to the white wire of the valve.
In reality it does not stay at mid point for long. The HW will normally get satisfied first, while CH will continue to called for.
When HW becomes satisfied, the grey wire becomes live, or you may turn HW off which also has the same effect (HW OFF terminal)
It's this grey that takes over from the white wire at mid point through the other microswitch.
As long as there is a call for HW the boiler gets is power from the cylinder stat. but when HW is not demanded then it comes from the valves orange wire.
With mine, which is a potterton, I removed the head from the valve spindle and found the head responded to the various actions, but with CH only the quadrant moved fully across but there was no power on orange wire.
Another oddity about these valves is that if you switch CH off (when HW is already off) it cuts off the power supply through the microswitch and boiler stops, but the motor remains energised so the valve stays in the CH position.
:rolleyes:
 
Update!

Swapped out the old cylinder thermostat with honeywell L641 and wired up as per diagram. Also - connected the earth wire up to room thermostat and the other end to the earth point in the wiring centre. Made no difference, the fault condition is the same, so whilst not a waste of time as i replaced an old cylinder thermo and earthed the room thermo it hasnt cured the fault.

Mandate - Thanks for the detailed info, trying to digest it - i carried out the following tests as per your advise:

CH on and HW OFF grey should be live - i put the red terminal of my multimeter (set to 700 setting on ACV setting) on the grey wire (point 7 in wiring centre), and the black terminal on the neutral point on the wiring centre (point 2 in w/c) and it read 236.

HW on and CH off grey should become live when HW has been satisfied (but not before) - When HW is not satisfied, the meter read = 066. When i turned the HW thermo down so it was satisfied it read = 235.

I assume those readings are ok?

Note - with both CH and HW switched off at programmer, the grey wire still read 236. Is this normal?

I have removed the cover off the Valve to check what you are saying about the motorised arm. With the power off the arm is up which you are saying is HW on. With programmer set to HW and CH on, the arm is down and looks like it is making contact with 1 of the microswitches which i assume is to set the valve to HW and CH. When i turn the cylinder Thermo down so it is satisfied then the arm moves down very slightly further which then makes contact with the other Microswitch as well, which i assume should tell the valve to go into position for CH only. I then switched the power off so that the valve position resets and then switched the power back on and set the programmer to just CH on and checked the arm and it moved to the lowest position so that so that both Microfilters were in contact with the arm again, which seems ok?

So from the tests it sounds like the wires from the programmer / thermostats are testing ok to liven up to trigger the valve, and also that the valve is working to power the motor to move the arm into the correct position? Could the Microfilter that the arm contacts in its lowest position (Programmer with CH on only or HW and CH on bit HW satisfied) be faulty and not be actually moving the valve to the correct setting? Does the microfilter also activate the pump and boiler as well, or does it just control the valve?

The following info might point to something, and perhaps i should have mentioned it before. When only CH is set to on via the programmer and room thermo is set so that room needs heating, the pump doesnt start running and the boiler doesnt kick in at all. So regardless of whether the valve is set to the right position or not, if the boiler isnt on and the pump isnt running then no hot water will be generated anyway will it?

The only other thing i can think of that might be causing this is when we were replacing the boiler that the existing wire between my old boiler and the wiring centre only had 3 wires in it. Because of this, i wired the Live, Neutral and Earth to the boiler into a plug and plugged it into a local 240v electrical socket to get around this. Then the wire that goes back to the boiler i only have the switched live connected, and because the manual for the Worcester Bosh 24ri boiler said it needed the pump to overrun to stop residual overheating i bought i Potterton pump overun and wired it into the wiring centre as directed so that the pump ran on for 3 mins once the Programmer timer switched off both CH and HW.

Could this be the reason, i.e. the Boiler Live/Earth/Nuetral are not wired into the wiring centre?

Your advise is really appreciated Mandate. I feel that i have gone so far with this and am nearly there, but its so frustrating!


Cheers
 
This may seem a bit simple but is the 3 port valve positioned the correct way round for heating and hot water.port A for heating ,port B for dhw.
 
You have established the grey is live when HW is satisfied or when HW is turned off, so it's not a wiring problem.
Yes it would be normal to read 236 with HW and CH switched off at the programmer. The CH switch is one way(one output wire to roomstat) but the HW switch is two way (two output wires ON goes to cylinder stat OFF goes to grey wire of valve).
The room stat powers the white wire to get the valve to mid point. At this point first microswitch is triggered. It now depends if HW is involved in the demand.
If it's not, then the grey wire must be live and if so it takes over from the white wire and drives the valve to the CH only position and while doing this it triggers second microswitch, which allows power to exit from the orange wire.
If HW is involved, then the grey wire is not live and can not take over as above. So the valve stays at mid point using a modified voltage.

What is a little misleading is understanding what happens when CH is switched off or is satisfied. In both cases there is no output from the room stat, so no power now on white wire and no output on orange wire so boiler stops. But what happens to the valve?
Well if there is still a demand for HW then grey wire no longer live so valve drops back to HW only and boiler relights through cylinder stat.
Now if there is no demand for HW then valve stays at CH only position and no need to re light boiler.
You obviously have to know what should happen in order to know if what happens is correct.
If you can prove valve moves from HW only to mid position then the important one, from mid position to CH only then your problem is almost certainly microswitch related.
The microswitch may have dirty/burnt contacts like mine had or maybe it is not being triggerd correctly. I suppose you could carryout a continuity test on them( with the power feeding into the programmer off of course)
Of course if you replace the head it covers the motor and any other possible faults within the head.
:rolleyes:
 
Lagunalen - Thanks for your post. The valve is definitely the correct way round as per the diagram and pipe lebelling. HW works fine so definitely correct way round.

I have come to the conclusion that the Microswitch that controls CH on and HW off within the motorised actuator is not working properly as it is not making the Orange wire live to keep the boiler and pump running to heat CH. When the other microswitch is engaged that controls HW and CH on the Orange wire has 235v across it.

Unless anyone have any other ideas about whether not having the boiler connected to the same Live / Neutral / Earth as all the other parts due to the wiring centre being located on a different floor to the boiler and not enough wires in the existing cable, i think best policy may be to change the Honeywell Valve actuator head.

What do you guys think?
 
Just read your last post.
Micro switch 1 cuts off the 230 volts from white wire and picks up the 230 volts from grey wire when CH only is called for.
This makes the motor move from mid point onward.
As soon as it starts to move micro switch 2 is triggered. This cuts off the 'holding voltage' (no longer required if HW not involved) and diverts the power out through the orange wire.
The reason why you have 230volts on orange wire when both HW and CH is called for is because it's coming from the cylinder stat.
However you seem to be getting a fairly good understanding of it now and replacing the head is the way to go.
Something that was omitted worth a mention. there should be lever on the side of the head. It is normally loose, by that I mean you can pull the lever and turn the quadrant slightly beyond mid point. I know some posters have done this when the motor has been at fault and got boiler to function.
The true purpose of this lever is to hook it into a latch that holds it at mid point while re filling system. So just make sure yours is not being held at mid position.
Hope you'll be cartwheeling soon.
:rolleyes:
 
Mandate - that lever on the side is in auto position. I used that before when i was getting issues so thats good to know that you have a manual poistion that will open the valve completely for CH and HW.

I have ordered a replacement head and will let you know if that does the trick.

I am pretty confident that with your input i think this will solve it now.

Fingers crossed!

Chris
 
Hope this helps someone.

I have two 2 port zone valves - Danfoss HPA2. They *both* have faulty microswitches in them, which after only 6 years operation, in a property that is only occupied (i.e. system powered up and operating) every other weekend, is appalling reliability.

Well, rather than spend £90+VAT replacing the actuators, I've replaced the microswitches (purchased, at £2 each, from Maplin!). They are a cheaper construction than the originals but I'll give them a try before throwing good money after bad(?) on new Danfoss actuators. In fact, I'd probably replace the valves completely for another make!
 
You're quite right in one respect, but you need to know exactly what type of micro switch is needed and have it to hand before you start the task.
Also you have to recognize that to replace the 'soldered in' type is beyond the scope of many diyers.
If you mess up, you don't have HW or any form of heating if it's a 3 port valve. Also if you're married you're in deep trouble.
I choose the easier option by replacing the head for £38, although since then I have repaired the old head and tested it on a 'home made test rig'
using
A two way switch to represent HW ON and HW OFF
A one way switch to represent CH ON
A two way switch to represent Cylinder stat
A one way switch to represent Room stat
A lamp holder and lamp to represent Boiler
A few feet of wire, two or three terminal connectors. Wired it all up and hey presto works a treat as I expected.
It's quite convenient to get a better understanding using a rig cause you can choose when HW or CH is satisfied without any problems.
:rolleyes:
 
It worked! Changed Actuator head and all is fine!

Thanks very much for your help Mandate. Your advice helped me sort this out, without doubt. Thanks for taking the time to assist me.

Thanks

Chris
 

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