At someone's house today they had a pump in the airing cupboard, connected - as far as I can tell - to the central heating system. The heating is provided by a boiler in the chimney (I think it's called a "back boiler").
There's a separate switch for the pump - it can be switched off (though I think it switches off anyway when the central heating is off).
What would happen if the central heating were on and the pump were off? Anything bad?
Daniele
On Wed, 7 Jan 2009 14:54:59 +0000 someone who may be snipped-for-privacy@apple-juice.co.uk (D.M. Procida) wrote this:-
Quite likely there is gravity circulation of the primary water from the boiler to the hot water cylinder. When heating is required then the pump is activated to pump water around the radiators. What is marked as "hot water" actually controls the boiler. If that is the case then it is an elderly system and consideration should be given to improving it by fitting modern controls.
Sounds like a gravity (thermo-syphon) HW and pumped CH system. Turn the pump off, no CH - simple as that - but the HW will still work.
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