My central heating is playing up. Help, its starting to get cold! Can anyone point me in the right direction? Its a pumped system with 3-way valve. CH and HW are operated individually by timer. CH has room thermostat and HW has cylinder stat.
Hot water alone is fine. Central heating together with hot water is fine.
Central heating alone provides no life from the boiler whatsoever. If I'm desperate for heat then I can turn on CH and HW on the programmer and then turn the cylinder stat right up (cylinder usually up to temp, so CH ceases along with HW), but its beginning to get to be a bit of a pain. The programmer and room stat seem to send the right signals to the 3-way valve (CH indicator on it lights up), but the boiler doesn't fire (no "request for heat" indicator on boiler). I'm certainly no expert in all things plumbing (novice is probably a more accurate description), but I'm thinking that its the 3-way valve causing the problem. Does the valve normally send a signal to the boiler, or is it part of the circuit sending the signal to the boiler? If this is the case, is it likely to be a wiring or mechanical defect? The valve seems to operate correctly in either HW only or CH+HW positions - ie there was no CH in the summer, HW was on. CH+HW operates fine, but cylinder gets up to temp much faster than the rest of the house!
Any other theories, or simple checks I can carry out in order to narrow down the area of the fault?
Thoughts and advice gratefully received! *shiver*
Thanks
Adam