This house was built within the last two years. Three stories, with bedroom and bathroom on the top floor. No loft space or tanks up there. The plumber was employed by the builder, and said to me that I ought to have the plumbing looked at by a professional every five years or so and in the the meantime all I needed to do was to keep the system pressure around 1.0 bar, which he showed me how to do. I've since found out that he told my wife to check the filter every so often, but didn't tell her how to do it or where it was. Now I could ring the builder and get the plumber's number and fetch him round for a tutorial but, to be honest, he wasn't a nice guy, he was sarcastic and abrupt.
If you are familiar with DHW/CH systems and you've got a few minutes perhaps you could download
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500K) which contains pictures of the contents of the utilities cupboard. Can you tell me what the various arrowed controls are, plus anything I haven't flagged but you feel I ought to know about? I've labelled those I think I know.
This is an unvented system, and should only have been installed by a competent person. The cylinder should be serviced once a year by a competent person also. So the advice to have checked every five years is incorrect.
Have a chat with the builder who should be able to point you in the right direction. Ask him also to confirm that he registered a Building Control Notice.
It's a Heatrae Sadia Megaflo unvented ( mains pressure ) indirect hot water cylinder, heated from a pressurised primary ( heating ) loop.
On Pic 1, you've already identified the main stopcock, the drain c*ck and the fill loop. The fill loop is normally used to increase the primary pressure to around 1 bar when cold. Check the boiler manual.
Item A I suspect is a bypass valve so the pump inside the boiler is not dead-deaded in the event that all the radiator valves are closed. Item B I don't know. Could be a pressure reducing valve. However, the megaflo's pressure reducing valve is elsewhere.
Item C is an air bleed-off for the heating coil inside the megaflo.
The 2 metal boxes on the pipes near the bottom of the megaflo are a pair of honeywell zone valves. The one closest to the camera is for the Hot Water. The rear one will be for one of the heating zones. These valves are controlled by the programmer, and allow the primary water to circulate in the megaflo coil.
The grey box on the side of the megaflo covers 2 things ( hence the 2 wires ): The back-up immersion heater ( in case the gas system fails );, and the tank stat and emergency cut-out both wired in series with the signal from the programmer to the zone valve. In this way, even when the programmer says it's time for hot water, if the tank is already up to temperature, the zone valve remains closed and the boiler will not get the signal to fire. The emergency cut-out is there to shut off the primary heat source in case the tank stat fails.
Item D is the Megaflo's pressure reducing valve, and inlet shut-off. It regulates the incoming mains cold water down to 3 bar.
In picture 8, the item in line with the cold supply going into the bottom of the megaflo is the expansion relief valve, which discharges into the tundish ( black plastic open funnel type thing. )
The valve on the side of the megaflo which also discharges into the tundish is the Temperature and Pressure relief valve. If this starts to discharge intermittently, follow the instructions on the big label on the front of the cylinder to re-generate the internal air volume.
The controller on the back wall appears to be a Horstmann "Channel Plus"
3-zone device, probably 2 heating zones ( upstairs / downstairs possibly ) and the 3rd zone will be the Hot Water.
Yes there is a filter in the system. It is in the pressure reducing/stop valve on the Megaflow (can't remember which letter on your pics, think it may have been D) These do get blocked and reduce water flow.
8.3 CLEAN THE STRAINER The strainer is incorporated within the Pressure Reducing Valve housing of the Cold Water Combination Valve (see Figure 2). To inspect and clean the strainer: i) Turn off the isolating valve on the Cold Water Combination Valve by turning the black handle so it lies 90o to the direction of flow. ii) Open the lowest hot tap in the system to relieve the system pressure. iii) Using a spanner unscrew the pressure reducing cartridge and remove the moulded housing. The strainer will be removed with the cartridge. iv) Wash any particulate matter from the strainer under clean running water. v) Replace the strainer and screw the Pressure Reducing Valve cartridge into the moulded housing. vi) Close hot tap, turn on isolating valve by turning handle so it lies parallel to the direction of flow. Check for leaks.
the angled thing with the grey plastic cap, abpve the drain c*ck, is also a pressure reducing valve; made by Caleffi I think and usually pre-set to 3 bar. If you look at the plastic cap, I think it says "pressure reducing valve with filter". It has a wire mesh strainer on the filter and you'd need to dismantle it to clean it; soak it in kettle descaler if it has lime-scale on it. Two PRvs & strainers will add unnecessary pressure losses.
But the thing marked D is the unvented water heater's pressure reducing valve; you don't need two and you must keep D, so I'd bin the Caleffi, unless there's another reason for keeping it. The capped off port on top of D is, I think, the connection for the equal pressure cold supply. Check the manual. If you don't use this, the cold is at mains pressure and some showers & mixing taps can't cope with an unbalanced H&C supply.
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