Strange central heating controls with Boilermate

glider3560

I recently bought a flat and today decided to put the central heating on for the first time.

I have a gas boiler, with a Boilermate device in the airing cupboard. This has controls for hot water and heating, plus a mechanical timer.

All the radiators have thermostatic valves, except the bathroom, lounge and one bedroom.

In the lounge and bedroom, there are separate digital thermostats with timer.

This seems like a really weird set up. The timer in the airing cupboard has to overlap with the timers in the bedroom and lounge to get any heat in those rooms. If the Boilermate's heating switch isn't on, then the controllers in the lounge and bedroom do nothing.

Does anyone else have anything like this? Would it be sensible to just leave the two digital thermostats on constant, then control the system (time etc) through the Boilermate?

Alex1983

That seems very weird, boiler mates usually just have a mechanic clock on the boiler mate which controls the heating.

For the lounge and bedroom to only work when the stats are calling and timer on then it would mean they have to have separate zone valves for each radiator which I would be very unusual.

Alex1983

Or does the bedroom and lounge radiators have any electrical rad valves or are they just normal lock shields?

newtonflotman

We have that system. We just leave the boilermate switched on permanently and timer on manual. We just use thermostat in lounge to turn heating on or off when required. You will find in deep winter if you use alot of hot water at once the boilermate then shutdown the central heating until the mains hot water is back up to a reasonable temperature. Not too bad system. Sensors have been known to fail and pcb board failure after around 10 years.

glider3560

Alex1983 wrote: »

Or does the bedroom and lounge radiators have any electrical rad valves or are they just normal lock shields?

There is a valve in the airing cupboard that opens when the bedroom and lounge thermostats kick in.

Alex1983

can you put a picture of the airing cupboard. Sounds like your system is zoned. It’s a good way to do it in some situations, it would allow you to have d/s heat on while upstairs is off. Our house has zones so we can heat the annex with out heating the main house. Seems a little over kill in a flat.

You normally will have 1 thermostat per zone. Are you sure the bathroom thermostat isn’t for electrical under floor.