Question about CH and HW control on a very old system

[neilmartin]

Hey everyone,

We've just moved into a rented property which has an absolutely ancient central heating/hot water system (I would say 1960s or 70s). No room thermostat or radiator thermostats etc. I've figured out the old analogue timer and set it up to turn the system on and off when we need it. Trouble is, the CH comes on with the HW so the house warms up a lot. I'm unable to isolate a few of the radiators as their valves have seized, so they remain on.

I'm looking for a way to switch off the CH part of the system on its own, leaving us with HW only. In the airing cupboard there are two switches labelled 'PUMP' and 'SOLENOID'. I suspect one of these will effectively turn off the CH, but which one (an educated guess would be the PUMP)? I don't want to blow anything up by switching off the wrong thing. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Warm regards.

Neil.

 

[spacethegas]

turn the pump off.
wont make it go bang.

 

[neilmartin]

Cheers for the reply, just out of interest, what would the solenoid switch control? Something to do with the cylinder?

Thanks again,

Neil.

 

[spacethegas]

thats puzzling me too.
possibly boiler ?

 

[neilmartin]

Not sure but we just switched the boiler on with the pump off and the rads don't seem to be heating up . I assume because of the age of the installation that the HW is gravity fed so switching off the pump hopefully won't affect it. Did a bit of Google research and this solenoid thing seems to be related to central heating (as an alternative to a pump from what I could gather) . Whether that has any relevance to this particular installation I don't know... The only thing that comes to mind is that there are two types of rad in the house, the normal on-the-wall ones and these very short (6" tall) ones that run along the floor where the skirting board would be. It's the valves on these that I can't seem to move to turn off. Weird... Thanks again.

 

[Sylvan Tieger]

Hey everyone,

We've just moved into a rented property which has an absolutely ancient central heating/hot water system (I would say 1960s or 70s). No room thermostat or radiator thermostats etc. I've figured out the old analogue timer and set it up to turn the system on and off when we need it. Trouble is, the CH comes on with the HW so the house warms up a lot. I'm unable to isolate a few of the radiators as their valves have seized, so they remain on.

Hi Neil, My system is from the 1940's was originally coal then oil then I removed the big boiler and installed two smaller ones.

I kept the original cast iron rads as they give off amazing heat.

Many I suggest you check out some of the non electric zone valves made in Germany and Sweden as each valve can be set to a min of 40 DEG F to prevent freeze ups and you can have higher settings in the rooms you want a little more heat in .

I have 28 rads in my home 21 rooms and it can be quite costly even for a plumber to heat all of them to 70 Deg.

Check out Danfoss or other hydronic supply places.. good luck

 

[spacethegas]

please ignore Sylvan, his advice although interesting for some of us will be irrelevant in your situation as he is in the US and unfamiliar with any UK upgrade standards.

not that you were asking for any.

 

[neilmartin]

Good advice though, individual thermostat valves on each rad would be cool but as we rent the property, we'd rather not fork out for plumbing work, as the landlord is ultimately responsible for its repair/maintenance. We might invest hundreds, maybe thousands in it, to then have our tenancy end and then the landlord gets to keep our good work!

Bits and pieces of plumbing have already failed - the toilet had the wrong components in it and was very hard to flush, and the hot water tap on the bath was so old and brittle that it snapped when we used it for the first time, spewing water everywhere, a cold water tap was very hard to turn off.... Anyway the landlord had to get all that sorted out by law. The whole lot needs replacing and upgrading, we heard from the estate agent's plumber that the landlord 'said he was going to do it...' Pah! Well it's his problem if anything major fails as he'd have to compensate and repair any other damage caused, could cost him more in the long run if he chooses not to get it sorted now. Ahem, rant over!

 

[Sylvan Tieger]

Actually if you explain to the land lord how much fuel he could save as having each radiator ( provided it is a two pipe system) and this upgrade will also help in renting as the lower fuel costs are a plus.

Heating is heating no matter which side of the pond your at

 

[Onetap]

Actually if you explain to the land lord how much fuel he could save as having each radiator .....................

Yes, but in the UK it is usually the tenant who pays for the fuel, so the Landlord doesn't give a stuff about how old and inefficient his heating is.

I would ensure that you have a copy of the current annual Landlord's inspection certificate, carried out by a Corgi registered inspector.

And being a suspicious sort, I'd probably ring up the Corgi technician to check it is kosher and that someone hasn't been cutting and pasting dates.

It sounds like it is an old system with pumped heating and gravity circulation from the boiler to the HWS cylinder (no pump).

OT