oil heating problem

wiireddevil

Hi,I am looking some advice on my oil heating,the house is a 7 bedroom bungalow with a loft conversion, the house is probably well over 2000sq ft,i live in northern ireland and the boiler is a heatage 60/90 which i cant find anything on the internet about,burner is an ecoflam minor 1,the problem is that when i turn the heating on the burner stays running and is not circulating on and off there is 18 rads in the house and only some are getting hot,there is no room stats in the house or motorised valves to seperate heating and hot water,i have shut the rads off upstairs from the manual valve and it still doesnt circulate on or off but when i turn the trvs on the rads down to 4 in all the rads downstairs it does any advice would be grateful as in the last 4 weeks or so i have burned around 700 litres of oil,thermostat on the boiler is set at 70 degrees:eek:

corkgsxr

sounds like the boiler might be abit small. you can change nossles and settings to the highest output.

but look at how your using your heat.

has the cylinder got a balancing valve (red head gate valve on the coil)/ motorised valve or is it running full flow through.

hows your insulation. if the attic insulation id bad its a terrible waste of heat.

is it balenced right. do some radiators heat mad and some very little.

find where your wastage is and try and solve it

wiireddevil

yes some of the rads are crazy heat and others not and thats with just the downstairs rads on.
red valve? do you mean on the water cylinder,by the way it doesnt seem to have a stat on it either
attic insulation?doesnt look to be to good to me the house is a rental and im no expert,the lodger before me said the house was so hard to heat,
the 2 bedrooms upstairs have 2 trap doors in each room made of mdf no insulating on them and are hung with kitchen cupboard door hinges and there is slight gap all around them ,the boiler is way out in the garage

shane0007

Boiler is indeed undersized, even so it should deliver heat to all radiators at the same time, albeit at a lower temperature.

Problem is your circulating pump. Check the head of the pump and I bet it is a 25/50 (5.0m head). When you shut down the zones and turn down the TRV, you are increasing the back pressure on the pump.

Change the pump to a decent quality pump such as a Grundfos 25/60. You should find a significant difference.
If finances allow, consider upgrading the boiler to a HE 35kw model. I think there are some excellent government grants in NI at the moment.

wiireddevil

shane the boiler does heat all the rads but the boiler just keeps running and only starts to cycle on and off when the upstairs zone is turned off when all the trvs are turned down to a 3 in the downstairs zone,the house is a rental and the landlord is sending someone to look at it is there anything i need to ask this guy

shane0007

It is not cycling as the demand is not being satisfied. If all rads/zones are being getting hot, then pump should be ok as is.
Boiler cycling when upstairs and TRVs turned down just means that they are heating and the boiler is able to satisfy the demand and is cycling due to the fact.
Burning 700 litres in 4 weeks seems very excessive. Could be more to do with efficiency of the boiler and heat losses within the house, i.e. insulation.

Billy Bunting

I would get your local Oftec Engineer in to service and check it out.

You have a big house and a boarderline boiler, its going to be working hard, settings out and it'll cost ya.

Reddevilman

We have just moved into the house at the start of sept andthe first week we moved in the landlord sent an engineer to look at the problem,he serviced the boiler and switched the circulating pump on and off to see if the boiler switched on and off and said thats it fixed,it wasnt till lastweek when i was out in the garage tidying up that i noticed it was running non stop again i have the heating on at the moment and rads are set at 3 and there is only a handful of the radiators warm there is 13 rads downstairs and 5 are warm the rest are cold

Billy Bunting

Reddevilman wrote: »

We have just moved into the house at the start of sept andthe first week we moved in the landlord sent an engineer to look at the problem,he serviced the boiler and switched the circulating pump on and off to see if the boiler switched on and off and said thats it fixed,it wasnt till lastweek when i was out in the garage tidying up that i noticed it was running non stop again i have the heating on at the moment and rads are set at 3 and there is only a handful of the radiators warm there is 13 rads downstairs and 5 are warm the rest are cold

How do you know he was an Engineer? did you get a report and print out of the flue gas analysis ?

jimf

its quite possible wrong nozzle has been fitted and your boiler is now seriously downrated

as billy said how do you know he was an engineer ????

Reddevilman

He is on the oftec website,and no he never gave me or the landlord a printout of the flue gases i take it he should of and what is on the printout

Reddevilman

Sorry for the 2 different names by the way i cudnt remember if id joined this forum or not lol i am on so many forums these days it gets confusing

Billy Bunting

Reddevilman wrote: »

He is on the oftec website,and no he never gave me or the landlord a printout of the flue gases i take it he should of and what is on the printout

How long was he there ???

The print out would have shown the results of the FGA and how he left it working for you, the service report would also tell you the size of nozzle and oil pressure he set it at, all would help diagnose your issue.

shane0007

Reddevilman wrote: »

We have just moved into the house at the start of sept andthe first week we moved in the landlord sent an engineer to look at the problem,he serviced the boiler and switched the circulating pump on and off to see if the boiler switched on and off and said thats it fixed,it wasnt till lastweek when i was out in the garage tidying up that i noticed it was running non stop again i have the heating on at the moment and rads are set at 3 and there is only a handful of the radiators warm there is 13 rads downstairs and 5 are warm the rest are cold

You are giving conflicting information.

First you say they are all heating up and then 8 are cold. Which is it? If they are not heating, I go back to be original diagnosis. If they are then if it an under-size issue and/or set up issue. Burner could be over-aired so most of the heat going through the flue and not given a chance to transfer into the heating system.

Reddevilman

He was there roughly 45 mins give or take

Billy Bunting

Reddevilman wrote: »

he serviced the boiler

I'm afraid not!! not in 45minutes. :rolleyes:

Reddevilman

Shane i never said rads were all heating up,i said the boiler only cycled when i turned them all dwn to 3 on the trvs

shane0007

wiireddevil wrote: »

shane the boiler does heat all the rads but the boiler just keeps running and only starts to cycle on and off when the upstairs zone is turned off when all the trvs are turned down to a 3 in the downstairs zone,the house is a rental and the landlord is sending someone to look at it is there anything i need to ask this guy

Hmmm....

Billy Bunting

shane0007 wrote: »

Hmmm....

Corkgzr will have this sorted

Reddevilman

If the boiler needs to be changed is it true it has to be a condenser boiler and if so how much roughly we looking at to buy and install

JohnnieK

It's ticking over on it's own internal stat as you have turned the trv's down and cut circulation to the radiators. There is nothing to tell the boiler that you have turned down the rads so it just keeps going on it's merry way.

shane0007

Reddevilman wrote: »

If the boiler needs to be changed is it true it has to be a condenser boiler and if so how much roughly we looking at to buy and install

Not too sure in NI as all boiler changeovers UK & NI must comply with current building regs and that means full time & temperature control with boiler interlock. It also must be certified with building control. It must also be accompanied by a powerflush. You have the advantage of having a building control there, whereas anyone in the south can do what they like.

Oh and yes it must be a HE condensing boiler unless certain criteria is met to allow the installation of a standard efficiency one.

Reddevilman

Hopefully i will know more by friday,thanks all will keep you posted

corkgsxr

Billy Bunting wrote: »

Corkgzr will have this sorted

Iv never failed yet, and iv worked on some pretty messed up systems

Reddevilman wrote: »

If the boiler needs to be changed is it true it has to be a condenser boiler and if so how much roughly we looking at to buy and install

Yep, buy priced a grant vortex 90k btu today and it was 1270 inc, you prob need bigger but gives ya a rough idea, install would need a quick look.

JohnnieK wrote: »

It's ticking over on it's own internal stat as you have turned the trv's down and cut circulation to the radiators. There is nothing to tell the boiler that you have turned down the rads so it just keeps going on it's merry way.

If he cut circulation it would have nowhere for the heat to go so it would cut out on its own stat

Reddevilman

heating engineer hasnt arrived yet but have discovered that a small red tank which i think is a sealed system kit be side the hot water cylinder is leaking,would this have anything to do with it,this house was built in 1999 and have noticed a sticker on the burner says tested 12/08/1999 so thats propabaly round when it was put in.The upstairs conversion was done in 2009 so i guess no one thought of getting a bigger boiler for the extra berooms bathroom and landing which is huge by the way,out of curiosity how often should my boiler be cycling on and off it seams it is on 2min and 15secs and off 3min and 45secs

Reddevilman

Has anyone any idea if the leak in the small red tank beside my hot water cylinder is making my boiler run non stop

shane0007

Reddevilman wrote: »

Has anyone any idea if the leak in the small red tank beside my hot water cylinder is making my boiler run non stop

No it would not. It would eventually stop the boiler working but could also cause some more damage to the system. It is the expansion vessel.

Reddevilman

landlord sent another plumber and not a boilerman,he said because it is a big house it is normal for the boiler to run like that.pffft

jimf

best answer to this is what a load of you what

no its not normal for your boiler to run constantly i think your been fobbed off