Radiators not Heating Up

tristanjourney

Hi everyone,

We purchased our new home this Thursday. I only managed to have a thorough look around today. I encountered an issue with radiators and I would appreciate any advice.

I have checked the boiler, which is a gas-fired Vaillant ecoTEC plus, and it appears to be running correctly. I also have a Honeywell thermostat on the ground floor, which I have adjusted to the desired temperature, but unfortunately, the radiators are not heating up. The hot water and cookers/hobs are working properly. Additionally, I noticed that our smart meter from British Gas has shown no gas charges since February, which seems unusual.

I have attached photos of the thermostat, boiler, and smart meter for reference. While I am not an expert, I suspect that there may be an issue with the connection between the thermostat and radiators. However, it is possible that I have overlooked something simple.

Thank you all for your assistance in advance!

mi-key

It could be a fault with the thermostat not sending the signal to the boiler. The thermostat ( or boiler ) will normally have some way of overriding it so you can just put the heating on without needing the thermostat to call for heat. See if you can find the manuals online for them to see how to do it.

Robin9

Your Honeywell stat is showing 10.5 deg     -   you need to press the up button to say 20 and see if the boiler cuts in.  There will also be a programmer  -   is that set at heating plus hot water ?   

PS the photo is of the In House Toy  - your Smart Meter will be in a meter box or in the garage.

This is the meter you should read to give to the supplier.   Take care = look for the decimal point and even more care if it has a key pad

tristanjourney

mi-key said:

It could be a fault with the thermostat not sending the signal to the boiler. The thermostat ( or boiler ) will normally have some way of overriding it so you can just put the heating on without needing the thermostat to call for heat. See if you can find the manuals online for them to see how to do it.

I do have the paper manual. But the manual only shows how to change the water temperature inside the radiators but not the desired room temperature.

tristanjourney

Robin9 said:

Your Honeywell stat is showing 10.5 deg     -   you need to press the up button to say 20 and see if the boiler cuts in.  There will also be a programmer  -   is that set at heating plus hot water ?   

PS the photo is of the In House Toy  - your Smart Meter will be in a meter box or in the garage.

This is the meter you should read to give to the supplier.   Take care = look for the decimal point and even more care if it has a key pad

That 10.5 is the room temperature. I did pressed the up button to 18, 20, even 30, but that wasn't helping. After a few seconds, the thermostat always switch back to display the room temperature.

YorksLass

As well as the advice above, have you tried bleeding the radiators?  Ideally, this should be done at least once a year - twice is preferable.

tristanjourney

YorksLass said:

As well as the advice above, have you tried bleeding the radiators?  Ideally, this should be done at least once a year - twice is preferable.

Not sure if that can cause all radiators to not work, but I will have a try tomorrow.

While I was searching how to bleed radiators online, I also found that radiators can have lockshield which can be turned off to make radiators completely isolated and cold. That could also be the reason?

Ayr_Rage

Lockshield valves should not be closed unless the radiator is to be removed 
Do you have thermostatic valves on one side of each radiator ?
Before you go round bleeding the system make sure you know how to top up the system as if the pressure falls below a certain level the boiler will not fire up at all, the current pressure looks reasonable and should be around 1 to 1.5 bar when the system is cold.
Do check that against the manual.

ThisIsWeird

tristanjourney said:

YorksLass said:

As well as the advice above, have you tried bleeding the radiators?  Ideally, this should be done at least once a year - twice is preferable.

Not sure if that can cause all radiators to not work, but I will have a try tomorrow.

While I was searching how to bleed radiators online, I also found that radiators can have lockshield which can be turned off to make radiators completely isolated and cold. That could also be the reason?

As you suspect, this is very unlikely - the lockshields should not be touched, and it's very unlikely they have been. The other end will either be a manual valve, or a TRV with numbers - which is it? And are these open?

One step at a time! When you turn that room stat upwards to above the room temp, does it make a 'click'? (Some do, some don't). Does the boiler do anything in response? Does the boiler display change at all?

I know nothing about that specific boiler and wall stat, so cannot tell if the CH is actually timed to be off - the seller may have done this to stop gas consumption. Must...read...instructions... :-)

ThisIsWeird

tristanjourney said:

That Honeywell appears to be a DT90E. That would make it a digital room thermostat only - ie controls the room's temperature - so it has no control over CH timings. I'm guessing, then, that the timings are set within the boiler - assuming there isn't an external controller/programmer fitted near the boiler? Have you checked?

ThisIsWeird

https://www.manuals.co.uk/vaillant/ecotec-plus-831/manual?p=11

The Vaillant EcoTec Plus can have a programmer fitted (where the large 'Vaillant' panel is to the right of the controls), but yours doesn't have one. That would suggest there is a separate programmer fitted near the boiler - please have a gander - or else the boiler is running in a purely 'manual' mode, and just responds to the Honeywell being turned up and down - in which case that ain't working (and isn't an ideal setup anyway).

So please report back with a larger pic showing the whole boiler and surrounding area, especially if there's a device mounted there.