Hi again,
I posted towards the beginning of November about our Ravenheat boiler and issues of it not getting warm in the rooms and switching itself off before I thought it got up to temperature.
Previous post below.
http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1051560#1051560158206
Wrong link posted before now changed.
We have now had a Ravenheat engineer out, who did various test, unfortunately I couldn’t be their so my wife was. He said that the boiler was getting up to its normal temperature and then doing what it should do and switching itself off. Talking to him on the phone he did say that it could be our 8mm pipework but then said it probably wasn’t as the radiators get hot so the flow rate was ok around the house. I then asked him why the rooms do not have chance to warm up before the boiler gets to it normal operating temperature. His only suggestion was to put another radiator in the lounge so we would have two. When I asked why our previous boiler used to heat the whole house up very quickly and stay warm, he couldn’t answer that, luckily we still had the instruction manual for the old boiler, and he looked at this and said the operating temps and flow rates were very similar to our new boiler, but could shed no light onto why we don’t get the heat into any of our rooms unless the heating has been on for a good few hours. Is this how combi boilers work. Even today when it was freezing this morning, after switching the boiler on, it turned itself off after about 20 mins then came back on for about 10 mins and continues doing this all day. As I say eventually the room will get warm but not overley warm, where you can take your jumper off. Surely on a cold morning the boiler should stay on longer than the 20 mins.
I have read the instruction manual but not been very mechanically minded it really doesn’t make that much sense, the pointometer is now fully turned up from my previous post, but does something else need doing to work in tandem with this. Looking through the glass window where the flame is, I am right in thinking that once the boiler is lit, that the flame should be fairly high and then reduce over a gradual period of time, because from what I can see the flame is high for about 5 – 10 seconds and then reduces to about what looks like an inch high flame, again is this right.
The bypass valve that is below the boiler on the ch flow and return pipes, the scale on this is from 0.1 to 0.5, at the moment it is set on 0.4. What is the purpose of this, and should the bypass valve get hot straight away or should it get only warm once the heating has been on for a while and everywhere is warm.
Will changing our pipework from 8mm to 15mm solve our problems, as I know the flow rate will increase, would this make our rooms warmer quicker before the boiler shuts down? If so, I know this is an open ended question but is there a rough ball park figure for doing this, standard 3 bed semi with 3 rads downstairs and 4 upstairs. Could I just change the pipework downstairs to 15mm.
On the boiler at the right hand side is a pipe leading from the top of the boiler to the bottom. On this there are two things with wires leading to the pcb, I know that the top item is, the overheat stat (blue and brown wire but I don’t know what the bottom one is (2 yellow wires), does any of these items have any bearing on our situation.
Also when the boiler swithces itself off, if I turn the hot water tap on, the water which comes ot of there is extremley hot, which I am assuming is some hot water which is in the system, but once I turn the tap off, the boiler will come on and stay on for about 20 mins. Is this somehow related to our problem.
Thanks for reading and hopefully someone could point me in the right direction as I don’t know what else to do.
I posted towards the beginning of November about our Ravenheat boiler and issues of it not getting warm in the rooms and switching itself off before I thought it got up to temperature.
Previous post below.
http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1051560#1051560158206
Wrong link posted before now changed.
We have now had a Ravenheat engineer out, who did various test, unfortunately I couldn’t be their so my wife was. He said that the boiler was getting up to its normal temperature and then doing what it should do and switching itself off. Talking to him on the phone he did say that it could be our 8mm pipework but then said it probably wasn’t as the radiators get hot so the flow rate was ok around the house. I then asked him why the rooms do not have chance to warm up before the boiler gets to it normal operating temperature. His only suggestion was to put another radiator in the lounge so we would have two. When I asked why our previous boiler used to heat the whole house up very quickly and stay warm, he couldn’t answer that, luckily we still had the instruction manual for the old boiler, and he looked at this and said the operating temps and flow rates were very similar to our new boiler, but could shed no light onto why we don’t get the heat into any of our rooms unless the heating has been on for a good few hours. Is this how combi boilers work. Even today when it was freezing this morning, after switching the boiler on, it turned itself off after about 20 mins then came back on for about 10 mins and continues doing this all day. As I say eventually the room will get warm but not overley warm, where you can take your jumper off. Surely on a cold morning the boiler should stay on longer than the 20 mins.
I have read the instruction manual but not been very mechanically minded it really doesn’t make that much sense, the pointometer is now fully turned up from my previous post, but does something else need doing to work in tandem with this. Looking through the glass window where the flame is, I am right in thinking that once the boiler is lit, that the flame should be fairly high and then reduce over a gradual period of time, because from what I can see the flame is high for about 5 – 10 seconds and then reduces to about what looks like an inch high flame, again is this right.
The bypass valve that is below the boiler on the ch flow and return pipes, the scale on this is from 0.1 to 0.5, at the moment it is set on 0.4. What is the purpose of this, and should the bypass valve get hot straight away or should it get only warm once the heating has been on for a while and everywhere is warm.
Will changing our pipework from 8mm to 15mm solve our problems, as I know the flow rate will increase, would this make our rooms warmer quicker before the boiler shuts down? If so, I know this is an open ended question but is there a rough ball park figure for doing this, standard 3 bed semi with 3 rads downstairs and 4 upstairs. Could I just change the pipework downstairs to 15mm.
On the boiler at the right hand side is a pipe leading from the top of the boiler to the bottom. On this there are two things with wires leading to the pcb, I know that the top item is, the overheat stat (blue and brown wire but I don’t know what the bottom one is (2 yellow wires), does any of these items have any bearing on our situation.
Also when the boiler swithces itself off, if I turn the hot water tap on, the water which comes ot of there is extremley hot, which I am assuming is some hot water which is in the system, but once I turn the tap off, the boiler will come on and stay on for about 20 mins. Is this somehow related to our problem.
Thanks for reading and hopefully someone could point me in the right direction as I don’t know what else to do.
