Rads get hot when only water is on

[Mwrobbo]

Hi All,

I've had a browse through the forum and have found many a thread on this. However they all mention a 3 way valve and I've not been able to find anything that matches the descriptions in other threads.

I have a condensing boiler with hot water tank in the airing cupboard.
Control unit in the kitchen which allows me to program the heating a hot water separately.
I've noticed that when I have just the hot water on the radiators get hot too. It's the same the other way around, when the central heating is on the water also gets warm.

This is quite annoying in the summer when you just was some hot water but the entire house ends up being heated too.

I've also noticed that even if the hot water is on for hours the water from the tap ever gets particularly hot. I've never even got close to it being unbearable to hold my hand under. Yet the radiators kick out plenty of heat.

Hope someone can shed some light on this for me.
I've tried to attach some pictures so I hope that's worked.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

View media item 98503View media item 98502

 

[Dan Robinson]

Whoever fitted the boiler should be shot for leaving the controls like that.

Get a heating engineer to upgrade your controls.

Possibly an S plan, Y Plan or even Evohome.

What you have their was out of date 20 years ago.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Although really you need a new hot water cylinder too.

 

[Agile]

Your hot water is heated by a conversion coil inserted in the immersion boss.

The temperature is controlled by a thermostatic bellows valve. But quite apart from whatever the setting is, the sensing part seems too high up the cylinder.

Although the length of the heating element is unknown but they were usually about 35".

Typically the thermostat would have been fitted about 6" above the bottom so about 30" down from the top of the cylinder.

First thing to check is the setting on the valve knob.

Tony

 

[Mwrobbo]

Thanks both for such fast responses.

Whoever fitted the boiler should be shot for leaving the controls like that.

Get a heating engineer to upgrade your controls.

Possibly an S plan, Y Plan or even Evohome.

What you have their was out of date 20 years ago.

I had a feeling this would be the response. Like everything else in this house, it's a mess.
Do you have any info on what the different configurations are and the pros/cons?

 

[Dan Robinson]

This has been covered many times here already over the years.... Please try the search function and post back with specific questions.

 

[Doggit]

You've got to admire the lateral thinking in using a remote rad valve to control the Hot Water tank; but it's a bodge job at best. Was all that pipe work installed with the condensing boiler, or just not upgraded when the boiler was changed.

There should be a 3 way valve that diverts the hot water from the boiler into either the rads or the HW tank as determined by the controls in the kitchen - which I suspect does very little at all. It looks as though the red gate valves may have been used to shut off the rads in the summer.

 

[Dan Robinson]

a remote rad valve to control the Hot Water tank

There are dedicated Valves that work fro cylinders.

 

[JohnD]

a remote rad valve to control the Hot Water tank

It might be a Drayton Tapstat or similar, though the head is different from ones I have seen.

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