Oil-fired central heating - no roomstat ??

Hi All

I realise that there's another similar thread running at the moment - but didn't want to confuse things by diving in on that one....

We have a new build house out here in the far South-West of Ireland. Wasn't built for us, but for the fellow we bought it off - so we're one step removed from the 'tradesmen' ( using the term loosely! ) who did the building / installing.

The house has oil-fired central heating, from a boiler in a galvanised 'mini-shed' outside, by the back door. The only controls are a timeswitch, a thermostat on the boiler and trv's on each radiator.

There appears to be an indirect coil in the dhw tank - with a simple 'flow restrictor' in-line.....

I'd have expected some kind of roomstat, and maybe even a stat on the cylinder controlling a valve to shut off heat to the dhw tank.....

.. would it be advisable to fit either / both of these ??

The boiler is a Firebird, the installation manual makes no mention of roomstats - though maybe they see that as being something separate from the boiler install ??

Thanks Adrian

Reply to
Adrian
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yes.

In general they are.

A typical layout has two motorsied valves that allow water to flow in the tank and the CH circuits. The outputs of their switches are OR'ed together to drive the boiler/pump. The boiler has its own stat which cuts the flame (but not teh pump) when the return flow is hit enough. With no cylinder stat that itself sets an upper limit on the DHW..but most boilers will produce 80C water - too high for safety.

The inputs of the motorised valves are fed from a timer via the respective stats.

The arrangement you have will work provided that the boiler temp is never allowed to rsie beyond 60C..that limits the hot water, and the TRV's will regulate the rads..however the pump will run full time - even when the rooms are all hot and so is the tank. Not good for pumps.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian saying something like:

Even though Irish regs call for a more precise control of boiler installation, many builders are still fitting them the old way - ie, no roomstat, just letting the boiler stat do the job. Such a system is easily upgraded with a roomstat or two controlling zones.

What you've just come across is the standard Irish CH installation - best upgrade it asap.

Btw, the outside mini-shed containing the boiler is a 'Heatpac' - a very popular addition to older houses (and many new ones) where room inside is at a premium.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

Personally I am not a fan of TRVs. What are much better are programmable thermostats where you can vary the room temperature during the day.

If you have a fully pumped system, you should also have a thermostat on the H/W tank. I suggest reading the faq for this ng.

Reply to
Michael Chare

Hi Dave

Thanks for the reply

I'm starting to get the picture with these 'standard' things...... built for cheapness, not efficiency ??

I could easily pop a thermostat and a valve up in the Hot Press (=airing cupboard for UK-types) - and that could then operate in 'stand-alone' mode. This would avoid ripping up the newly-varnished floorboards to run cabling... (quite a strong 'selling point' at the moment )

The new house isn't particularly small - but we did notice a number of new houses when we were looking that had a 'Heatpac' outside the property. Does seem popular... don't think I've ever seen one in the UK though...

Many thanks Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

Another idle thought......

I've worked on many houses in the UK - and in all of them the 'grey water' drains came out through the external walls a couple of feet off the ground, turned through 90 degrees, and then dropped straight down into trapped drains, with grilles over the top.

In this new house we have something that, to my mind, is very odd. All grey-water (as in sink, dishwasher, washing machine, shower) drains on the ground floor come through the outside walls at floor level and then just end over a drain grille - there's no 90-degree elbow down into the drain. The effect of this seems to be that a fair amount of the water shoots over the drain grille and onto the concrete path which surrounds the house, rather than going down the drain.

Is this a peculiarly Irish thing - or is it a botch ??

I was considering fitting elbows on the end of these drainpipes to 'point' the water down into the gully - seems like a good plan ...?

Thanks Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

Yes, but that is a benefit! In the past we had a sitting room thermostat which would get turned up in the evening when we are sitting down doing nothing and then left thus keeping the house unnecessarily warm during the day time. Also the temperature control was never very good.

Now we just have a sensor in the sitting room which can't be fiddled with. The programmer is in the kitchen, it is more complex, but I can set it to make the house warmer in the evening, temporary overrides are possible, and the temperature controls is actually very much better..

Installation was fairly easy as I was able to use the existing wiring, but I did have to buy it! and the first one developed a fault just as I was going on holiday in the winter when we have to leave the heating partly on to prevent the pipes from freezing.

Reply to
Michael Chare

Is there a difference?

Sounds like a blank sheet of paper and a list of things to do would be a start..

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Now don't go getting the idea that all Irish craftsmen are bodgers. There's some very nice carpentry in this house, for instance, and the wiring's fine. Just one or two (!) not so good bits - like where they touched up the paintwork on the hall & stairway walls where they'd dinged it with stepladders & the like. Same colour paint - just vinyl silk rather than vinyl matt - looks awful !

Been there - done that

Actually - it's an A2-sized whiteboard - but the same principle

Regards Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian saying something like:

Just sloppiness - the bloke doing it couldn't be arsed to do it properly. There are plenty of properly done installations, but you take yer chances on who you get.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

OK - understood....

Will do. The plastic grilles covering the drains seem to have a pattern on them indicating that, with a bit of careful snipping /sawing, you could get a drain pipe down through them. That would make sure that the water went where it should...

The gutters are done the same - water shoots out of the angled bit on the bottom of the downpipe and about half of it (in a good downpour) goes across the grille and down over the concrete path.

Even better is the drain from the downstairs shower - which is one of those strange 'half a room tiled all over' jobs. This drain seems not to have a trap at all - and the drain simply exits through the wall into the gully - or the wind comes back up, depending. Never seen such a thing in the UK - another 'cba' do you think ??

Good news is I got a man who knows what he's doing to sort out the aerials for tv & satellite - _and_ I got the wireless broadband connected - which is brilliant !!

Thanks Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian saying something like:

More than likely, although I'd be wondering just what kind of drain is in the shower - most shower drains I've seen have a trap of some sort. I'd not be surprised if it's either got no trap or it might be a removeable inner that's missing.

Great stuff. Wireless BB here is an absolute lifesaver when Eircom can't be arsed to do the local exchange. I'm using Vodafone 3G atm, but it's still in an experimental stage for me - I'm messing around with antenna setups and might need an rf amp or two, since I'm 4 miles from the nearest cell mast. The past 3 days, for example, has seen 3G speeds almost non-existent because of the clear and calm conditions - I reckon I was normally getting connected to the cell because of a bit of scatter. There's always the fallback of GPRS, which is about the same as dialup, but it's frustrating.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

Performance with 3G also depends on how many people on the cell are using it, where "how many" is not a large number.

Have you carefully checked the usage tariffs? It can be quite a lot per megabyte unless they are charging differently to 3G in most countries.

I use 3G on my PDA for mobile email, which works very well, but there are careful mechanisms to minimise data volume transferred - e.g. I have a setting that allows the first so many KB of an email to be downloaded and no attachments. Then if I do want to get the attachment to read (typically because I won't be at a WiFi hotspot for a while), then I can elect to do so.

In the first month of use, my data volume charges were a couple of hundred ££s per month (voice tends to be about £400-500 per month to put it in perspective). Once I had the email settings organised correctly (trade off between cost and convenience), it is now typically around £30-50 which is much more reasonable.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Yes - that's the sort of thing I'd seen before. There seems to be a removable part to the waste fitting - must have a look around there and see what's what. I'm baseing the 'lack of trap' on the draught that blows up said pipe when the wind is from the east..... and, yes, we have put water down it so if there is a trap then it should have been filled with water.

This is from a local company (Schull) called digital forge

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Little white aerial about the size of a square biscuit tin - only about 10ft off the ground - looking down the valley to the GAA grounds at Ballydehob. Seems to contain a UHF transciever, aerial and rf-to-ethernet circuitry. Plugs straight into the little lan here and works a treat. For people who can't 'see' Ballydehob they alos have a main station on top of Mount Gabriel, and other little relay stations to serve specific townships.

Certainly a lifesaver. It took about 3 months to get eircom to install a landline - and 'Until we've put the landline in then we won't know id you can get broadband or not'. A few days after the landline went in, I did an online check and - whopee! - it passed the broadband check. So I ordered broadband from eircom, they checked the line and it worked, and I waited, and I waited, and I waited......

3 weeks later I rang eircom to find out what was happening - only to be told that no order for bb existed. On closer examination it seems that they'd tested the line for bb availability on 4 subsequent occasions - and, each time, it had failed. So they'd cancelled the order - but didn't think to tell me ! It also appears that a newly-installed line will pass the bb check - regardless of whether the line's suitable or not..... doh !!

So - after what seems like a lifetime on eircom's absolutely awful 'free' dialup (which connected at 46k but must have had an appalling contention, cos it was slower than a snail) - we're on a nice stable 1 meg connection from digital forge - and loving it !

And the sun's shining - what more could a boy want !!

Regards Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Hall saying something like:

I suspect the 3G capability on my nearest cell isn't all that great, but since most of it will be passing through (as in, road warriors calling in, etc) most of the time I probably have it to myself.

It's a flat rate deal - 5GB/mth for 50 euros. The data cost under the previous system would be horrendous - about a thousand quid, which would have made it a definite no-no. It's still a bit pricey compared to other wireless offerings, but it's a Hobson's Choice situation for me.

I was using it out and about today - sitting in the nearest city on my laptop I was getting full 3G speeds and keeping up with stuff on t'net.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian saying something like:

Heh. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Eircom. Thing is, the vast majority of the people who work for them are perfectly ok, but the company is sometimes just a pain in the arse.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

So true. In an earlier life I did some business consulting - particularly on quality systems. The starting point there was that the front-line people in any company are all trying to do their best - but the poor customer experience is usually as a result of management's policy decisions, or poorly-implemented systems.

The sheer audacity of a system that first accepts a customer's order, then cancels it - without bothering to inform the customer - is amazing....

Mind you - I had a similar run-round with Allianz, trying to get the car insurance sorted out..... generally any organisation which has a call-centre makes me start to twitch and feel uneasy

Anyway - just been watching something on RTE about the new breed of Irish - up Dublin way - seems a million miles from the fairly simple life that's led out here in the sticks, thank the Lord !

Regards Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

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