Halstead Boiler - Unwanted Heating Coming On!

george1982

I am renting a flat and we used to have this boiler for over 8 years. It did work fine, but a few months ago it started doing strange things. According to the landlord this is ‘normal’ and the boiler got inspected a month ago and passed, but the ‘issue’ still remained. I would like some clarification from experts, if this is ‘normal’ or can/ needs to be fixed.

I set the control to Hot Water (not Hot Water and Heating) and made sure that the timer was not set to come on at any particular time.

All functions well by getting hot water on demand when we run the hot tap/shower.

Two months ago I noticed one evening that every radiator in the house was on full blast! I have now turned all of the radiators off. It keeps happening though when we either run the hot water or have a shower - the heating kicks in, even though it is set to Hot Water only. The only way to turn it off is to turn the whole boiler off.

This is the first time I had this issue, and it is annoying hearing the boiler firing up every 10 minutes for 4-5 seconds. Another thing I noticed, that whenever I want to use the hot water, I get instantly hot water … before I had to wait 4-5 seconds to get the boiler fired up and get it flowing.

For me personally this does sound like and issue and not normal.

Would appreciate somebodies professional opinion about this.

Thanks.

Le_Kirk

Sounds like it is a combi? I assume you have a thermostat for the central heating? Turn it down so it does not call for heat. Does the boiler still fire up and cause the radiators to get hot (of course you will have to open some of the valves again)? If not, it sounds like the diverter valve is sticking.

george1982

Thank you for your quick reply Le_Kirk.

Not quite sure what model it is, since I couldn't fine anything on the boiler. Have taken a picture:

prntscr.com/7rdosn (copy it to your browser, since the site doesn't allow active links from new users)

Turned one of the radiators on and will report back this afternoon.

Once again, thank you for your help and suggestions.

george1982

PS: just realised from the image that somebody changed the setting to 'timer' ... although nothing is set, still fires up. Have changed it to 0 and will report back.

squeekswhenwalking

Sounds like the diverter valve is possibly stuck or passing. The gas safety check wouldn't have picked this up as it's only a safety check. A boiler engineer who specialises in combi repairs might be needed as most heating engineers don't understand the inner working of combi boilers

george1982

Thank you for your reply squeekswhenwalking.

As advised have turned one of the radiators. It does get hot every time it fires up (every ~10min). We do not have a thermostat installed.

Although all the radiators are turned off, am I correct that every time it fires up it uses gas? The landlord thinks this is normal - I don't.

squeekswhenwalking

It's not normal for a boiler to heat radiators without being required. The only reason a boiler would fire without a demand is either a fault, as I believe yours is, though some boilers do have a preheat but I don't think yours does.

squeekswhenwalking

http://www.heatingsparesltd.com/download/boiler_manuals/Halstead/Finest_Gold_Installation_and_Servicing_Instructions.pdf

george1982

Could anybody let me know how much the spare part would cost roughly?

Thanks,
George