I recently helped a friend trace a central heating fault. The "wiring centre" was a mess. A single gang surface pattress covered with blanking plate and a mess of crimped connections inside made testing and replacement of components difficult.
We plan to fit a conventional wiring centre at some time. System is open vented Y-plan with an Ideal ICOS HE24 boiler fitted recently to replace previous boiler. Unusually for a modern boiler there is no pump overrun.
I was wondering if it is worth fitting a pipe thermostat to the flow to give pump overrun when replacing the wiring centre. Pump live would be fed from the thermostat common contact, thermostat normally closed to switched live, and thermostat normally open to permanent live.
Is there any point in bothering? Will it help boiler reliability? There are no signs of boiler kettling or overheat lockout occurring when call for heat is satisfied, but it seems a good thing to do if we are fitting a new wiring centre.
Is the temperature setting of the pipe thermostat critical? I am thinking:
1) if set too low, when call for hot water is satisfied the circulating pump will keep running and wastefully extract stored heat from the hot water cylinder, while on the other hand 2) if set too high, pump will never overrun when call for central heating is satisfied, particularly with a modern condensing boiler which is more efficient with a low temperature.Is there any experience on the best setting for the pipe thermostat?
Regards,
MJA