Central heating

chewycov

I think I've answered my own question here, I know it's an old system so I'm assuming the large amount of hot water in reserve would have been for one needed hot water for the shower and washing machine and whatnot

southcoastrgi

chewycov wrote: »

OK, from studying the hot water tank a bit and playing around I think I might have sussed what's going on. Cold water goes into the tank from the top, hot water comes into the tank from the boiler at the bottom. About one third of the way from the top of the tank, on the left, hot water goes out to the hot water taps - this works fine. About one third of the way from the bottom of the tank on the right, hot water goes out to the pump then presumably onwards to the radiators. Now it appears that water will only go out that way while hot water is coming in from the boiler, and because the boiler is being so intermittent in its function, there's rarely hot water being fed out to the pump.

I have no idea if that's even remotely correct but that's just how it appears to me. Does this sound plausible to anyone who has more of a clue than I do?

It would explain (at least to me) why I can have a water tank full of hot water and lovely hot water coming out of my taps but stone cold radiators.

Pics would be handy cause I can’t make head nor tail of your description

chewycov

chewycov

You can just about see the pump at the bottom, water from there (and thus from the boiler) should be going into the tank at where the middle red circle is, red circle on the left is to the hot water taps, red circle at the bottom I'm assuming is waste as is (I'm assuming) black circle at the top, and I think that the black circle at the bottom left is most likely where one would drain it from. Blue circle at the top seems to be mains cold water in.

Alex1983

It’s a fortic tank.

Black is over flow, blue is cold feed.

Red on left is hot water outlet and the 2 on the right are the coil.

Alex1983

You have a diverter vavle at the bottom, the blue bit. It’s a standard y plan open vented system.

chewycov

chewycov

And there's the boiler which as you can see is pretty old. I think really it's a problem with the boiler itself or one of the components because water seems to flow everywhere alright, it's just that the boiler doesn't fire up for more than a few minutes at a time. I've got a plumber pal coming to visit in a couple of weeks hopefully, I was just wondering if someone here could help me figure out a quick bodge job but even I'm not silly enough to try taking bits off the boiler myself lol. Thanks for the replies though people

Alex1983

The boiler is old but there is very little to go wrong with it, I’d suspect the pump isn’t send the water around the system quick enough so the boiler is shutting down and not coming back on till it’s cooled down.

chewycov

Thanks mate that actually makes sense. Time for a new pump then I suppose lol