Heatrae Sadia Amtec c600 help needed

verytired11

This is my first time on this forum so my knowledge is very limited.  We have just moved into a house with an external home office that is heated with a wet radiator system and a heatrae sadia amtec c600.  The electricity bill for the first month is huge.  Our immediate concern is just to switch off the boiler until we work out how to use it and what our needs are, but we can't seem to find an isolator switch to switch it off, nor does there seem to be a dedicated circuit for it on the fuse board.  We have switched the timer off, but the boiler seems to keep running.  There appears to be a receiver attached presumably to receive info from a thermostat but we can't find any thermostats.  Should there be an isolator switch?  Is there a way of switching it off from the control panel?  Any help orienting us to the system would be very welcome.

QrizB

That's an electric flow boiler. It's the most expensive conventional method of heating a building. It's a 6kW boiler.

You saty it's in an "external home office". Can you post a photo of the fuseboard?

matelodave

AS said above, a flow boiler is probably the most costly way known to man to heat a place. A convector heater, oil filled rad or fan heater would probably work out cheaper

Regarding isolator switches and thermostats, in general, assuming that it was installed correctly  there should be an isolating switch within a couple of metres to allow safe working but that would be down to the installer and not the boiler manufacturer.

Likewise any thermostat would have been provided by the installer, not by the boiler manufacturer, so TBH you really need to get an electrician in to check out the wiring and install a new thermostat if you cant find the old one. Thermostats are cheap and easy to install, even wireless ones which sounds like a bit of overkill for an home office as is a flow boiler unless it was intended to end up as extra accommodation (granny flat?)

If you do it safely you can try tracing the cable run between the boiler and the fuse board _ I'm guessing that if its an outside office then there's a main feed from the house supply to a fuseboard within the office where the fuses for any lighting, sockets and the heating would be connected (or that's how it should be). If its close enough to the boiler then that could serve as an isolating switch.

A few photos of the fuseboard, and associated wiring would help together a piccy of the unit and the thermostat receiver would help us all avoid guessing  but in the end if you don't know how it works and aren't everso competent then you'd better get an electrician to check it over

verytired11

Here is the fuseboard.  The swimming pool has been filled in and we had no knowledge of a ground source heat pump.  The main house is on an lpg standard boiler

verytired11

we tried the obvious switch and it didn't turn off the supply to the boiler

matelodave

At a guess the isolating switch above the thermostat receiver just isolates the circulating pump but should also stop it calling for heat, so although the boiler unit has a supply it shouldn't be running until the stat actually calls for heat (the heat light should indicate when it's heating, not sure what the call light is for) If theres no thermostat then it probably cant call for heat anyway and so wont be using any power

Have you tried turning the various switches on the fuse board off to see what happens (ie which circuits stop working). As they are all turned on and they seem to be labeleed for various things it should be relatively easy to sort out what does what and what doesn't need to be on (the swimming pool perhaps?) 

Without a better idea of what you've got, GSHP and underfloor heating for instance and the pit (whatever that is) you could be using leccy without knowing, in which case the flow boiler probably isn't the cause of the huge bill - its more than likely to be the GSHP and underfloor heating etc.

this is from the boiler manual which indicates that if the green call light or any heat lights are not on then it's not producing any heat

9.0 OPERATION AND INDICATORS
The SUPPLY indicator (green) will remain illuminated all the time the supply is present to the boiler. The CALL indicator will illuminate (green) on demand from the programmer and thermostats or (red) for an alarm overheat condition. It will flash (green) for 2 to 3 minutes during which it carries out self-tests, the bottom heat indication can be seen to operate during this time. At the end of this period the call light will remain on steady (green), until the heating demand is satisfied. The HEAT indicator will illuminate when the boiler actually produces heat, when the CALL indicator (green) is illuminated. The gradual build up in heating power of the boiler can be seen on the front panel. The HEAT indicator also shows the boiler modulating when it reaches operating temperature, or if the temperature rise is too quick.

coffeehound

The swimming pool breaker would seem favourite since it already existed.  Is the office near to the site of the former pool?

Reed_Richards

matelodave said:

At a guess the isolating switch above the thermostat receiver just isolates the circulating pump but should also stop it calling for heat, so although the boiler unit has a supply it shouldn't be running until the stat actually calls for heat (the heat light should indicate when it's heating, not sure what the call light is for) If theres no thermostat then it probably cant call for heat anyway and so wont be using any power

I agree; I used to have a similar thermostat receiver and it needed to be on for the boiler to operate.  The actual thermostat could be anywhere within wireless range of the receiver.

If you do have a Ground Source Heat Pump you are tremendously fortunate because they cost an arm and a leg to install but can be very economic to run, particularly in comparison to your electric boiler.

matelodave

Reed_Richards said:

If you do have a Ground Source Heat Pump you are tremendously fortunate because they cost an arm and a leg to install but can be very economic to run, particularly in comparison to your electric boiler.

only if its set up and operated correctly 

Mister_G

The OP does say that they have LPG as their main heat source, and not a GSHP.

matelodave

Mister_G said:

The OP does say that they have LPG as their main heat source, and not a GSHP.

If that's the case there's no reason for some of the circuit breakers to be switched on