Problem with honeywell 3 port diverter valve

[Neil]

Hi,

I have a problem with the radiators being hot when the hot water only option is selected.

I have taken the motor assembly off the diverter valve to expose the shaft as i suspected the valve had jammed.

Grasping it with the mole grips it seems very free between 1130 and

1230 on the clock, if you see what I mean....it rotates about 20 degrees, but then its solid in either direction. This isn't right is it ? Should it go right round 360? 180?

I don't want to force it.

Neil

[Heliotrope Smith]

Neil wrote in news:fqadv5t18fu7acoh04vuqcvsrtn629q86s@

4ax.com:

The ammount of movement you have is correct.

The inside is a rubber ball that goes side to side to block each port in turn or stay in mid position leaving both ports open.

Do not try to turn any more that it does now.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: [e-mail] ---

[spamlet]

Some might tell you that the shaft does go right round, but in my experience they don't. If you look at the 'T' shape of the pipework you can see that a valve - which may be a ball on a stick, or a 'v' shaped piece of hard rubber - only needs to be moved a relatively short distance. Don't force it, or the actuator assembly might not go back on in the right position.

Just check that when as far as it will go on one side the CH only pipe gets hot; when fully the other way only the hot water pipe gets hot. If that's the case. it is almost 100% certain that the microswitches in the actuator have burned out and the thing has defaulted to the mid position.

From my thread on the same subject you will see this is an extremely common and annoying occurrence, and the replacement actuators all seem to be made the same crappy way and fail after a relatively short time. It is - if you are handy with a soldering iron - possible to replace the microswitches in the actuator, but therest of the mechanism is so fussy, that even then it can be difficult to get the thing to balance at all three positions.

The problem typically shows up at this time of the year when people expect their rads to be cold and find they are not, but during the winter it also means that your rads never get the full flow of hot water and you waste vast amounts of time trying to balance rads or even replace pumps before you finally realise what is inside that curious little box with the wire coming out of it...

See if anyone comes up with a reliable actuator on my thread, otherwise, a new and probably rubbish Danfoss seems to be going for around £35 at the mo - which incidentally, is a fair bit cheaper than the last one I had to buy.

S