Oil burner - can I turn on to heat water only and not rads

Berbatov

Hi All,

Hope someone can help - imagine it's a simple yes/no answer? Immersion heater element gone (realise this is extremely inefficient in any case) and looking to have hot water only in Summer - no need for heating.

I am checking if one of these valves in hot press can be turned so that when oil heating is turned on it will only heat water in the tank and not the rads. Attached in a photo at rear of tank/hot press.

Is it a case of turning one of the valves (if so which?) or is there something else needed to be added to the system to make this work?

Berbatov

Apologies forgot to add attachment to first post

firemansam4

From what I can make out looking at the picture the 2 lever action valves do 2 radiator zones in your house and could be shut off.
But I can't see all the pipework in that picture and I'm making assumptions because of that.
So I could be completely wrong.

John.G

Berbatov wrote: »

Hi All,

Hope someone can help - imagine it's a simple yes/no answer? Immersion heater element gone (realise this is extremely inefficient in any case) and looking to have hot water only in Summer - no need for heating.

I am checking if one of these valves in hot press can be turned so that when oil heating is turned on it will only heat water in the tank and not the rads. Attached in a photo at rear of tank/hot press.

Is it a case of turning one of the valves (if so which?) or is there something else needed to be added to the system to make this work?

Yes, it can, can you post a photo of the coil entry/pipework into the top of the cylinder.
Assuming you havn't got any zoned systems, then If you can't isolate the upstairs&downstairs rads you can simply shut off one valve on each rad but I would recommend leaving one small rad in service. switch on the heating system to constant (if timer fitted) and leave on for ~ 1.5 hrs to give you a tankful of hot water.

Berbatov

Hi,

Thanks for the replies! So here are some more photos of the system - showing entry pipework at the top of the cylinder. I am not sure about zoned system to be honest - house built '06 ish.

In the photo with the 4 vertical pipes the second from the right has the tee off to the top of the cylinder - it doesn't have any valve on it as far as I can see.

John.G

The photo i would be interested in would be taken above the valve with the red hand wheel which is on the heating coil return, its on the side near the top of the cylindder immediately above that red hand wheel and is the heating coil inlet.
Overall, i think it would be maybe easier to shut off all the rads ( one valve on each) bar 1 which i suggested above

blackbox

Our cylinder is upstairs and we heat the water alone by simply not running the pump. Upstairs rads turned off. The hot water circulates naturally.

firemansam4

The pipe teeing off to the top of the cylinder is the hot water feed and vent pipe.

In the first picture I'm thinking that the heating flow pipe comes up and goes to 1 manifold for rads and maybe goes to rads somewhere else, I'm guessing it goes up and feeds into the coil at the top of the cylinder.
At the bottom of the cylinder it returns out to a balancing valve then into a manifold to take the return pipes from the rads, I'm thinking a pipe must go out the far side of that manifold somewhere.

Still would need to see more pictures of above the first one and to the side of that manifold showing more of the pipes.

knipex

Berbatov wrote: »

Hi,

Thanks for the replies! So here are some more photos of the system - showing entry pipework at the top of the cylinder. I am not sure about zoned system to be honest - house built '06 ish.

In the photo with the 4 vertical pipes the second from the right has the tee off to the top of the cylinder - it doesn't have any valve on it as far as I can see.

Pipe from top of the cylinder is hot water feed to taps with a vent to tank in attic.

Pipe into the bottom of the cylinder is cold water feed to the tank. Ignore these.

You should have 2 pipes into the side of the tank, one higher and one lower. These connect to the coil in the tank that heats the water.

Can you follow these pipes, take photos and describe.

I am guessing that in your first photo that if you close the higher of the two level valves that this would shut off the up stairs rads and the lower valve would shot off the downstairs rads but without more info that's a guess.

I think the pipe to the bottom of the tank is the cold water feed taken from the manifold with a shut off valve to isolate it from the system to drain and or remove the tank.

You could close both valves and turn on boiler. Confirm the coil in the tank is getting hot bu the rads stay cold. Then open one valve, give it 115 minutes and see what heats (upstairs or down). repeat with second valve.

Berbatov

Thanks again.
Ok so here is situation so far as far as I can grasp it!
Pipe into bottom of cylinder is cold water feed
Pipe out from top is hot water feed to taps
The two other pipes are for cylinder coil - lowest one goes up the wall with a shut off valve on it.

I've named the photos like I've descirbed above - hopefully this is clear? If I've picked it up wrong please let me know (I'm sure you would anyway! )

Solution so far is to turn off both shut off valves in the first photo - test to see if water is heating and rads staying cold. Turn one on and then test to see which set of rads this is isolating and then repeat with second.

If turning off both valves means water gets hot and rads stay cold is it ok to leave it like this for the summer? Any impact on the system for when I want to reinstate the heating

knipex

Berbatov wrote: »

Solution so far is to turn off both shut off valves in the first photo - test to see if water is heating and rads staying cold. Turn one on and then test to see which set of rads this is isolating and then repeat with second.

Exactly. Based on the set of photographs you just posed I would be pretty confident that that this is how your system is set up.

Berbatov wrote: »

If turning off both valves means water gets hot and rads stay cold is it ok to leave it like this for the summer? Any impact on the system for when I want to reinstate the heating

That exactly what I do for the summer.

Might be worth looking at fitting automated valves linked back to a thermostat but manually opening and closing will work fine.

Berbatov

Great - that's worked, hot water in tank but rads are off. Thanks very much

knipex

Berbatov wrote: »

Great - that's worked, hot water in tank but rads are off. Thanks very much

Glad to hear it.