Hello,
I am after a bit advice regarding my parents heating system please, notably the (possibly) incorrect teeing in of the cold feed.
As a bit of history originally they had a parkray with a primatic cylinder which about 30 years ago was changed to a Baxi Bermuda back boiler, indirect cylinder and separate F&E tank with pumped heating (pump on the return with injector tee at the boiler) and 28mm gravity primaries.
The open vent has been taken off the gravity flow to the cylinder, but the cold feed has been taken vertically from a horizontal section of pumped heating flow pipe work in the cylinder cupboard and not from the gravity return which is what I expected.
The system has obviously running for years although a few rads have not been getting hot at the bottom suggesting they are becoming blocked but it was only a week or so ago when the F&E tank copper float sprung a leak and filled so needed replacing that I noticed the system was pumping over.
There is no way it has always been doing this so my initial thought was that the cold feed (which I had expected to be connected into the gravity return back to the boiler) had become blocked , but seeing as it is connected into the pumped heating flow I do not think it is. To prove this I drained some water out of the system from a DOC on a ground floor rad and the water level in the tank dropped.
My basic questions are :- Around 30 years ago was it acceptable to connect the cold feed into the heating flow, or has it always been wrong? I must admit that the heating open vent extends vertically a long way over the tank as may be a way of getting around the pumping over even when the system was first installed?
I have turned the pump speed down from 2 to 1 which has stopped the pumping over but does not circulate water sufficiently around the rads.
I plan to drain down, take the rads off and back flush them and whilst drained down re-pipe the cold feed if that would be the correct thing to do to stop pumping over.
Sorry for the long post!
Cheers
I am after a bit advice regarding my parents heating system please, notably the (possibly) incorrect teeing in of the cold feed.
As a bit of history originally they had a parkray with a primatic cylinder which about 30 years ago was changed to a Baxi Bermuda back boiler, indirect cylinder and separate F&E tank with pumped heating (pump on the return with injector tee at the boiler) and 28mm gravity primaries.
The open vent has been taken off the gravity flow to the cylinder, but the cold feed has been taken vertically from a horizontal section of pumped heating flow pipe work in the cylinder cupboard and not from the gravity return which is what I expected.
The system has obviously running for years although a few rads have not been getting hot at the bottom suggesting they are becoming blocked but it was only a week or so ago when the F&E tank copper float sprung a leak and filled so needed replacing that I noticed the system was pumping over.
There is no way it has always been doing this so my initial thought was that the cold feed (which I had expected to be connected into the gravity return back to the boiler) had become blocked , but seeing as it is connected into the pumped heating flow I do not think it is. To prove this I drained some water out of the system from a DOC on a ground floor rad and the water level in the tank dropped.
My basic questions are :- Around 30 years ago was it acceptable to connect the cold feed into the heating flow, or has it always been wrong? I must admit that the heating open vent extends vertically a long way over the tank as may be a way of getting around the pumping over even when the system was first installed?
I have turned the pump speed down from 2 to 1 which has stopped the pumping over but does not circulate water sufficiently around the rads.
I plan to drain down, take the rads off and back flush them and whilst drained down re-pipe the cold feed if that would be the correct thing to do to stop pumping over.
Sorry for the long post!
Cheers
