Single channel boiler control

ishouldbehappy

We have a house with oil fired heating, the system is installed with a single channel controller. Is there a way of having water only in the summer - I was thinking of setting the thermostat to lowest setting?

the property also has an electric immersion heater, would it be more economic to use this through the summer (if so I’ll get a timer with advance feature fitted)

MikeJXE

Is it not a combi boiler ?

ishouldbehappy

don’t believe so

ThisIsWeird

Make and model of boiler, please. Photos of controls - those on the boiler, and any external.
There must be a way to have only DHW.

ishouldbehappy

Grant vortex eco wall mount boiler and ESi Es1247B controller

FreeBear

It would make sense to replace the single channel timer with a 2 channel model (ES2247 if you want another ESi). Or go for a Drayton Wiser and get the benefit of a programmable thermostat - This would enable you to set different temperatures throughout the day and should reduce your heating costs by 5-15%. Regardless of which type of timer/thermostat you fit, going to a two channel control will save you money during the summer.

Section62

ishouldbehappy said:

We have a house with oil fired heating, the system is installed with a single channel controller. Is there a way of having water only in the summer - I was thinking of setting the thermostat to lowest setting?

the property also has an electric immersion heater, would it be more economic to use this through the summer (if so I’ll get a timer with advance feature fitted)

We need some pictures of the areas around the boiler and the hot water cylinder.

One of the old methods of setting systems up was for the hot water to be heated by a gravity/thermosyphon arrangement, with only the central heating being pumped.  The controller turns the system (including the boiler) on and off.  The room thermostat turns the central heating pump on and off.  The idea was in the summer you turn the room thermostat right down (so the pump doesn't work), so when the timer/controller switches the boiler on the only work it does is to heat the hot water cylinder (and maybe the bathroom radiator) via the gravity/thermosyphon arrangement.

But we'd need to see pictures to work out whether the pipework and arrangement of other features is what would be expected for that kind of system.

If so, turning the room thermostat right down should stop the radiators getting hot - although the gravity/thermosyphon system may mean the upstairs radiators get warm as well.  In some cases there is a manual valve which can be closed to stop that happening.

ThisIsWeird

ishouldbehappy said:

Grant vortex eco wall mount boiler and ESi Es1247B controller

A pic of your hot cylinder, and all the surrounding pipe and bits would help too.

There's something weird here - why wasn't the boiler fitted with 2-channel controls in the first place? Perhaps because the required motorised valves weren't present, and the installer didn't want to go to the effort of fitting them? Who knows.

Tbh, although your system is really quite backward in terms of controllability, and adding a Prog Stat as FreeBear suggests would be a significant improvement, I'm not sure how much you'd actually save by then heating your water by oil rather than electricity. The two fuels are not that far apart in cost, and it will almost certainly cost you a fair bit to update your controls to keep using the boiler for just DHW. Not just the new Prog Stat, but quite possibly motorised valves too, so we are getting into a number of £undreds. And, if you instead decide to use leccy for your summer DHW, then boiler will have a lot less wear too.

So, leccy for DHW in your case makes some sense!

Could you post the pics I asked for earlier, please, and we can perhaps advise further. But, if it's going to cost a lot to update, I'd be tempted to look at a Smart immersion controller like the Tesla T-Smart instead, where you can observe and set the temps and timings via your phone.