Return and flow pipes from boiler reversed on Storage Cylind

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21 Oct 2011
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Location
Glasgow
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Help? Please

System - Baxi Boiler heating water to radiators and a storage cylinder, only two options Hot Water or Heating & Hot Water.
Storage tank - 73 Litres.
Boiler is actually stored in my loft are and the storage cylinder in a room one floor below the boiler.

We have central heating cover with Scottish Gas (SG). Approx 1 year ago we had a leak in the Storage cylinder and SG came out and replaced the storage cylinder.

After this we (eventually) noticed that the it would take some time before the water in the storage tank became warm and recently we have been timing this and it can take approx 4-6 Hrs to heat the water in the Storage Cylinder when it is just the hot water on (heating off).
I have no problems with my heating, the radiators heat up quickly and are extremely warm.

On starting up the boiler from a fresh and checking the flow from the boiler to the storage cylinder at the water pipe going in to the storage cylinder, the pipe is extremely water, to warm to touch with bare hand. On checking the return coming out the storage cylinder this is cold, then after 1 hr becomes Luke warm and after several hrs become similar to the flow from the boiler.

Further investigation highlighted that I seamed to be getting a regular (approx, every 10 mins) overflow of boiling hot water going direct from a pipe in the side of the boiler directly in to the top of my header tank (not the pipe at the bottom of my tank going directly in to the boiler) The header tank has extremely hot water in it.
When the heating and hot water is running at same time this dumping process doesn’t happen as regular.


On calling out the SG Heating Engineer, they as usual quickly diagnosed that I needed a new boiler (as usual).
I mentioned that the boiler seemed to be producing plenty of hot water for the heating and hot water. He then within minutes told me that I probably had a blockage in a pipe and this wasn’t covered under the any cover available with SG. (I have maxim SG Cover).
The Engineer then stated that as my boiler is over 10 years old and due to SG cost for a power flush, I would be better replacing the boiler and quickly left. Before leaving he recommended that I could take a magnate and run up and down the pipes looking for the blockage. I did this on all return and flow pipes to and from the cylinder and boiler, but found no blockage

I decided to read up some further on how a central heating system work, to allow me to try and better challenge the SG Engineers. One of the first things I identified is that the Storage Cylinder is meant have the Flow (hot pipe) from the boiler going in to the cylinder above the return to boiler (cooler pipe). On my Cylinder this appears to be reversed and the flow is going in to the bottom of the cylinder and the return is above it in the cylinder.

We have a friend of a friend who has not long started an apprenticeship as plumber but hasn’t done much work on central heating systems. I spoke with them and they believe that this could be a reason why my hot water is not heating as quickly as it should and dumping water from the boiler to the header tank.
He has stated that for 73 Litre even with and old boiler is should be heating the water within 30 to 60 minutes at the most.

Before I get the SG Engineers back out I am looking for some confirmation that the way the boiler flow and return to my storage cylinder being reversed maybe causing the problems I am seeing.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Peter
 
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As your system is pumped (?) it makes no difference which way round the pipes are. As the cylinder is rather too small it was probably done that way to give a greater capacity.

It seems to be sludged up as diagnosed.

Tony
 
Hi Tony,

Thanks for the quick reply.

As my Cylinder was only changed 12 months ago and I had two new radiators fitted just over 2 years ago and the system was flushed on both occasions and I never had problems like this prior to the new cylinder how would my system have become sludged up.

Peter
 

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