solid fuel

nadiahealy

hi its me again,i took everyones advice to solve my gravity flow problem,i raised the cylinder higher than flow on stove as its on same floor and left both flow and return unrestricted,gravity works great now but when pump kicks in its not circulating to rads,stove boils over.i have flow dropping into flow on cylinder and and onto return back to stove,but pump and non return valve are on before tee as it go,s to return on coil and back to stove,is the pump now pushing against itself through flow and return on the coil preventing it to flow and return to rads

DoneDL

nadiahealy, would it be possible to take some photos of the system and post them.

oikster

How many pipes have you connected to your stove?

nadiahealy

yea will c if i can do that,

nadiahealy

Here are photos requested, would be grateful for any advice on what to do next
can anyone tell me if this system is plumbed up right or wrong?
Hotpress 003.jpg
Hotpress 004.jpg
Hotpress 002.jpg
Hotpress 005.jpg

nadiahealy

oikster wrote: »

How many pipes have you connected to your stove?

Just 2 pipes, the flow to cylinder and rads and return from cylinder and rads

shane0007

It is hard to make out but is your pump pumping into the return of the solid fuel coil?

What is the pipe stat wired to on the by the rad manifold?

heinbloed

@ nadiahealy:

Have you ever thought about hiring a heating engineer (smiley)? Obviously the plumbers can't fix it, propably caused all the problems....
Just a thought.

nadiahealy

shane0007 wrote: »

It is hard to make out but is your pump pumping into the return of the solid fuel coil?

What is the pipe stat wired to on the by the rad manifold?

yea the pump is pumping into return, stat is on flow pipe at stove

shane0007

nadiahealy wrote: »

yea the pump is pumping into return, stat is on flow pipe at stove

Then the system is plumbed wrong. The pump should be pulling out of the cylinder coil and therefore has the system pumping in reverse.

With regard to the stat, I meant the stat in the picture beside what looks to be the radiator manifold.

Is that pump the pump for the stove or the oil boiler?

Is flow from stove to coil coming across attic and then down to cylinder or is that the osvp rising from the coil to the attic?

nadiahealy

The pump is pumping into the stove on the return
The flow is coming across attic and down to cylinder, expansion pipe tee'd off as it drops down.
The stat in the photo is a homemade underfloor heating circuit for a bathroom floor, the stat signals motorised valve to close at required temperature, works well.
When you say the pump should be pulling out of cylinder coil, would the pump and nrv not be restricting the gravity circuit to the stove?
On the right side of cylinder is stove and on left is the oil

shane0007

Where is the osvp for the solid fuel located?

nadiahealy

when you say osvp is that the vent pipe

shane0007

Yes, the Open Safety Vent Pipe. Where is this teed off the solid fuel circuit?

nadiahealy

vent pipe is teed off as it drops into hotpress,its at the highest point.i think thats ok.does the plumbing on pics look right?

shane0007

It is very hard to make out and follow each pipe run.

Have a look at this diagram I created and you should be able to see if yours matches it.

The other issue is that you do not have natural gravity circuit as the system is dropping down from the attic but this would not stop the system operating correctly when the pump is running. It would just bang if you had a power or pump failure.

shane0007

Can you take a picture of below the cylinder at low level, particularly of where the pump is pulling from. I am trying to see where and why is the pump pulling from the flow and pumping into the return at the same time. I think the mistake is where you have teed off the flow to the rads and then again off the same flow to the return.

nadiahealy

Yea that diagram matches my system.
My gravity flow is working well,as pipe in the attic is rising all the way until it drops into hotpress to cylinder, and cylinder return is higher than flow on stove so i think im on the right track

shane0007

Do you see what I am talking about the doulbe teed from the flow? The pump is pulling out of the flow to the rads and directly back into the return so it has no radiator circuit.

nadiahealy

Hotpress 005.jpg[/QUOTE]

nadiahealy

There are upstairs rads also on circuit

shane0007

Where is that white pipe going upto (bottom right)?

shane0007

I thought this was upstairs?

Does this the problem happen when just stove is on or when oil & stove are on together?

shane0007

Is that a 330 & a 318 screwed together where the oil flow to the rads meets the stove flow to the rads? If so, that's not a good idea. I would change that to 2 x 318's at different points on the system. The two system will never work together like that.

nadiahealy

shane0007 wrote: »

Where is that white pipe going upto (bottom right)?

that is the return to rads upstairs and downstairs.

It hasnt boiled over now in a while, i think it was just an airlock in the flow from stove, i had to drain it down to raise cylinder for gravity circuit to work. I have lit a few fires since and it seems to be working ok, rads are heating up.

Is the oil side plumbed in ok in photo? the flow and return are rising up on bottom left with 2 gatevalves on pipes

shane0007

nadiahealy wrote: »

It hasnt boiled over now in a while, i think it was just an airlock in the flow from stove, i had to drain it down to raise cylinder for gravity circuit to work. I have lit a few fires since and it seems to be working ok, rads are heating up.

You could have told me this before I was spending all this time squinting at the pics! That is why I asked you about the osvp as I suspected there was an air lock but glad to hear it is solved.

nadiahealy wrote: »

Is the oil side plumbed in ok in photo? the flow and return are rising up on bottom left with 2 gatevalves on pipes

Initially it looks like you have no osvp on your oil side but that's another days work.

I would doubt if both systems can operate at the same time.

nadiahealy

yea sorry should have told you sooner bout it working ok.if i put an expansion vessel on oil side in hotpress instead of tryin to get a expansion pipe to attic would this be ok

shane0007

nadiahealy wrote: »

yea sorry should have told you sooner bout it working ok.if i put an expansion vessel on oil side in hotpress instead of tryin to get a expansion pipe to attic would this be ok

No that is not acceptable. It is an open vented system and therefore should that vessel diaphram ever split, you will be none the wiser and back to square one. An osvp is not part of the expansion system anyhow. It is purely for safety, hence the name "open safety vent pipe".

If you run it to the attic and it is in front of the oil boiler pump it may pitch. It should really be in negative pressure.