Central Heating Problems

[HH]

Hi, Just moved into a new house (about 4 years old). The central heating has a few problems,

1. Should the pump make much noise. When the heating is on we can here the pump going in the living room!
2. After the heating turns off at 2130, during the night we can here the pump start up again, and after a while the all the radiators are warm, the timing is definatly not set to come on. Is there anything else that would cause the heating to come on??

Thanks. Paul.

[Andy Hall]

You don't say where the pump is. There are several possibilities

a) The pump is set unnecessarily high. Try turning it down using the small control on its terminal block. Check that all the radiators still heat up OK afterwards and that the boiler is not tending to fire for short periods - less than a minute.

b) The mounting arrangement isn't good and it is setting up some kind of resonance in the pipework. Some pipe clips may help, or may not.

c) The pipes are clipped but to a stud wall and it is acting as a sounding board

d) The pump is a cheap contract grade one and is on its way out. This is entirely possible if corrosion inhibitor wasn't used in the system and sludgy water is circulating. With some pumps (e.g. types that used to be fitted as spares by BG) it's possible anyway.

A frost thermostat in the boiler or somewhere else. Where is the boiler? If it's in a garage or something, then this could explain it. Even indoors, if the frost thermostat is set too high, the heating will come on unnecessarily. Generally setting it to 8 -10 degrees is reasonable.

.andy

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