Hot water problem

[Stuart Black]

Hi

I am the midst up doing up my bathroom and Friday afternoon removed a radiator, including the valves (i.e. leaving open pipes at each side). I foolishly thought that since the heating was off for the summer it wouldn't matter.

When a small amount of water appeared I figured that was because the 3-way valve might have to make its way past the "heating" position, and capped the pipes off on Saturday.

Today (Sunday) the hot water is refusing to heat up.

I figured there might be air in the system and found a little screw on the infeed from the boiler to the hot water tank. I loosened this temporarily and some air came out followed by a small amount of water, but the pipe to the hot water tank is still not getting hot so the water inside the tank is not getting hot.

I checked the CH expansion tank and that is OK, i.e. it hasn't run out of water, it seems to fill OK when the level drops.

Any ideas what else i should look at ?

Yours feeling silly

Stuart

[mike ring]

"Stuart Black" wrote in news:ZCK_c.227$ [e-mail]:

It sounds as if your boiler and pump are not working; I know it seems a bit obvious, but you don't say, and it's hard to see how they can be with your description, also if the C/H is working, which again sounds impossible, given your description, as three port systems are generally HW priority.

The bleed valve you operated gets air out of the primary (boiler/hot water coil) circuit, which appears to be ok

Try putting your valve in the "manual" position; this should enable the pump and boiler to operate.

And repost, addressing my points, so the real experts have a bit more to go on

HTH

mike

[Stuart Black]

Hi (repost)

I am the midst up doing up my bathroom and Friday afternoon removed a radiator, including the valves (i.e. leaving open pipes at each side). I foolishly thought that since the heating was off for the summer it wouldn't matter.

When a small amount of water appeared I figured that was because the 3-way valve might have to make its way past the "heating" position, and capped the pipes off on Saturday.

Today (Sunday) the hot water is refusing to heat up.

I figured there might be air in the system and found a little screw on the infeed from the boiler to the hot water tank. I loosened this temporarily and some air came out followed by a small amount of water, but the pipe to the hot water tank is still not getting hot so the water inside the tank is not getting hot.

I checked the CH expansion tank and that is OK, i.e. it hasn't run out of water, it seems to fill OK when the level drops.

The boiler is definately working as is the pump. In fact they are working overtime as the water in the cylinder never gets warm enough to switch them off !

Any ideas what else i should look at ?

Stuart

[mike ring]

"Stuart Black" wrote in news:xe2%c.575$ [e-mail]:

As there's no takers I'll have another go.

As your boiler and pump are running the heat must be going somewhere; I have to assume it's into the heating, if not there should have been an explosion as all your safety cutouts have failed.

It may be that your 3 port valve has failed actually in the valve, rather than the actuator - I'm told this is pretty rare, but if you disturbed a piece of crud....

You may be able to remove the top bit of the valve (the electrics) and see if you can move the actual stem with a wrench. With older valves you can't do this.

Putting it into "mamual" should have done this if the brass bit of the valve is working.

If your pump and boiler is working, and neither the rads or hot water are heating up, I should evecuate the area.

HTH

mike

[Stuart Black]

Thanks Mike,

Valve is working, I think the boiler is overheating as it seems far more active than normal.

The primary feed into the cylinder is getting hot, as is the feed out after a while, but the coil is having nowhere near the heating effect, both in temperature or voume of heated water.

I still suspect that the removal of the radiator is the cause but it's not an obvious problem to diagnose. Any thoughts on how such an act could cause the hot water feed to become ineffective ?

Stuart

[mike ring]

"Stuart Black" wrote in news:j5L%c.176$ [e-mail]:

I've got to say I haven't a clue.

Ican't see how removing the radiator has done anything, unless it drastically changed the C/H circuit.

Rads are usually wired in parallel across the main boiler pipes so removing one should not affect the circuit too much - is it possible yours are in series, so you've blocked the circuit (very unlikely)?

Have you got TRVs on the rads, which are closed due to the summer temperatures? Can you adjust them to get flow?

In any case, I can't see how this would affect the totally separate HW circuit.

I forgot something - are the rads getting hot, because of demand from the room stat, or perhaps a fault, so that the lack of hot water is because of hot rads?

Have you got a bleed valve on the primary - sorry, I forgot, you have, and it works - just make sure you have a nice steady squirt of water from it after a bit, not "fizzing"

When all is said and done, I can't see how your boiler can pump 12>15 kW into your tank without something blowing after about 1/2 hour or so. And if the boiler safety stat isn't cutting out pretty quickly (short cycling) the heat must be going somewhere, the boiler stat would cut very fast if it weren't.

FRankly all the above is very speculative, I had hoped some of the more knowledgeable folk would take up your problem, it was either something you said, or perhaps theyre baffled! I don't quite see how to get their attention, they can't be forced to reply.

That's the best I can do unless I think of something else; I hope you find the answer soon,

mike

[mike ring]

mike ring wrote in news:Xns955FC7625EC70mikeringbtinternetco@217.32.252.50:

Incidentally, this thread is rather a long way back on a busy group like this, my newsreader goes to it because I've posted, but you probably will have to repost to bring your problem back to the top in the hope someone will pick it up - I really don't know why no-ones answered, but thiings get swamped very quickly unless you get a reaction - you're prolly nearly a thousand posts down by now.

And usually the experts here love a problem, especially someone elses

mike