Central heating/hot water problem

Treadway1

Hi guys, I know what they say about there being no such thing as a silly question, but I fear this may be an exception. Please bear with me though, as I just have no idea about boilers! My problem is that I cant seem to get my boiler to produce hot water and heating at the same time! And I dont know if thats normal or not. I used to run my boiler 24/7 with water and heating running at seperate times, and would control the heating using the room stat., but having just received an astronomical bill for gas I decidede to try and change it. I set it so that both water and heating come on at 5am, then go off at 9:30am, then to come back on at 5pm and off at about 10:30pm. That cut the time that water was being heated down by half, so great plan thought I. Trouble was, when I got up this morning, the water was nice and warm, but no heating! Also when I turned the room stat, it clicked when I turned it back and forth, but the boiler didnt make the whooshing sound like it usually does when it fires up. Infact, it did nothing! Is this right though? Do some boilers only allow you to have hot water, or heating at once, or do you think its knackered. If it helps, I have an old (very old infact) baxi boiler that is connected to and sits behind an old gas fire in the living room. Thanks in advance folks.

david29dpo

Do you know if you have any zone valves in the system?

Treadway1

Im not sure. What would they look like and where would they be?

Another stupid question, maybe!

brig001

It sounds like you have a "conventional" heating system (as they call it) with a hot water tank in an airing cupboard. If so, there is a valve that switches water from the boiler to heat the hot water OR the radiators. The hot water on systems like this has priority, so until the hot water is hot enough (according to the thermostat on the tank), the radiators can't be heated.

You could set the water to come on an hour before the heating to help with this.

The tank shouldn't really lose its heat over night (unless the hot water is being used), so I would also look at insulation for the tank and pipes that come in or out of it. If your airing cupboard is hot, you are losing too much heat from the tank and heat is expensive - as you have found out. I recently did this to ours and our airing cupboard is now only four degrees C warmer than the landing, so we're not losing too much now.

To reduce you gas bill, look at draught proofing (floors to skirting boards being a good start) and then insulation.

Good luck.
Edit: PS, not a silly question.