Can someone help me understand my new heating setip

fjon

Just bought a new house and the inside of the hot press looks a lot different to anywhere I've lived before. I was wondering if anyone could help me understand what I'm looking at here? It's probably a fairly common setup, but I've lived in a mostly older houses until now.


Top switch is the immersion. Isolator switch has four wires coming out of it - 3 going to the white valve things, and one going to the thing that looks like a thermostat attached to the bottom of the bottom of the cylinder. The plug is for the pump.



Should the isolated switch be on?

Vote4Napoleon

Turn ur immersion switch off, the stat on the cylinder switches on the valve for the hot water. The live to the stat is probably controlled by a timeclock. Heating the water through either gas or oil is way more efficient than the immersion plus it heats way more water than the immersion.

Edit: if you have some pipe lagging it wud be no harm to put it around the pipe where the pump lead touches.

fjon

Thanks for that. I presume the white valves aren't on as the switch isn't on - would I need to turn that on? Not sure what timer you mean, apart from the main heating timer near the downstairs boiler?

rightjob!

fjon wrote: »

Thanks for that. I presume the white valves aren't on as the switch isn't on - would I need to turn that on? Not sure what timer you mean, apart from the main heating timer near the downstairs boiler?

Do you have two room thermostats?one down stairs and one upstairs?

fjon

rightjob! wrote: »

Do you have two room thermostats?one down stairs and one upstairs?

Yes, one in the living room and one in the main bedroom

rightjob!

fjon wrote: »

Yes, one in the living room and one in the main bedroom

If you turn both room thermostats to 0 it closes the motorised valves and stops the rads from heating up,so you will be heating just the water then with the gas boiler.

fjon

Great, thanks. I guess I need to change the valves from the "MAN" to the "AUTO" setting also?

Vote4Napoleon

fjon wrote:

Great, thanks. I guess I need to change the valves from the "MAN" to the "AUTO" setting also?

Yes do dat if they're in man den they're open

fjon

Dragging up an old thread I made. I didn't quite do this right last summer, and I ended up turning off each rad individually in the summer so the gas only heated the hot water.
I'm determined the get it right this time! So I've turned the wall thermostat in the living room and in the bedroom to 0C - this should mean the water is heated when I turn on the "heating", right? The motorised valve nearest the water cylinder in the first picture is turned on and set to automatic - is that correct?

Wearb

For hot water only, to me it looks like the 2 in 1st pic should be off and other one in 2nd pic on.

fjon

Ok, by off you mean unplugged completely? For the one in the second pic, should the switch be on "Manual" or "Automatic"?

Wearb

fjon wrote: »

Ok, by off you mean unplugged completely? For the one in the second pic, should the switch be on "Manual" or "Automatic"?

If they are working properly they should never be unplugged. Also they all should be on automatic. Then they should be controlled electronically by a combination of thermostats and programmer.

Wearb

Wearb wrote: »

If they are working properly they should never be unplugged. Also they all should be on automatic. Then they should be controlled electronically by a combination of thermostats and programmer.

Leave them all plugged in and on automatic. Turn both room stats down all the way. Turn up the cylinder stat to about 65/70 (you'll soon see what's suits you best).
Then turn your programmer to call for hot water only. Your pair of valves should remain closed and other one open and your boiler should come on. ---assuming your cylinder isn't already hot.

fjon

Ok, the issue might be that currently there is only 1 Zone, we don't have separate zones for upstairs/ downstairs/ hot water. It's either all on or off. I thought it might be possible to change ones of the valves to make only the water in the cylinder heat up, and not the rads.

Wearb

fjon wrote: »

Ok, the issue might be that currently there is only 1 Zone, we don't have separate zones for upstairs/ downstairs/ hot water. It's either all on or off. I thought it might be possible to change ones of the valves to make only the water in the cylinder heat up, and not the rads.

It's plumbed for 3 zones, 3 valves.
It's wired for 3 zones, 3 stats.

So I don't understand your above statement.
Perhaps you mean that something isn't working as it should.

fjon

Yeah, it was plumbed for 3 zones, but the controller is only set up to do one zone. I don't know the history of why it's done like this - it was before I moved in. I had a plumber look at it when he was in the house and he said it looks like someone started but didn't finish the job of changing from 1 zone to 3.