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Hot water tank valve positions

  • 10-12-2018 10:43pm
    #1
    mulbot
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,926 ✭✭✭


    Hi all,just a question regarding the positions of valves on my upstairs hot water tank-it's a fairly new system,there are 2 red wheel valves beside a lever valve away from the tank which are all open.One red wheel valve on a pipe that enters the bottom of tank(it's in open position too),there is a vertical pipe(with a red wheel valve) coming off this bottom pipe.where it turns to the left it has a small yellow motor and to the right it enters the tank( at the top).However I noticed the wheel on the vertical pipe is in closed position. Should this be in the open position,like the others? Thanks in advance.


Comments

  • #2
    agusta
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,590 ✭✭✭agusta


    if you could post pictures,it would help


  • #3
    mulbot
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,926 ✭✭✭mulbot


    48361122_380287812716841_8510574320903258112_n.jpg

    Here we are,It's the vertical pipe valve I've concern about,Thanks.


  • #4
    sullzz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,409 ✭✭✭sullzz


    mulbot wrote: »
    48361122_380287812716841_8510574320903258112_n.jpg

    Here we are,It's the vertical pipe valve I've concern about,Thanks.

    Bypass valve, should be closed fully and then opened a fraction.


  • #5
    mulbot
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,926 ✭✭✭mulbot


    sullzz wrote: »
    Bypass valve, should be closed fully and then opened a fraction.


    Ok,thanks for getting back to me. Cheers


  • #6
    agusta
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,590 ✭✭✭agusta


    It appears to me that the bypass valve should be fitted on the other side of the motorised valve so its not serving any purpose in my opinion


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  • #7
    sullzz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,409 ✭✭✭sullzz


    mulbot wrote: »
    Ok,thanks for getting back to me. Cheers

    The red gate valve at the bottom pipe ( horizontal) should only be open a small bit too.


  • #8
    sullzz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,409 ✭✭✭sullzz


    agusta wrote: »
    It appears to me that the bypass valve should be fitted on the other side of the motorised valve so its not serving any purpose in my opinion

    Yep


  • #9
    mulbot
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,926 ✭✭✭mulbot


    Should i have it looked at? Another question,maybe not related ,the bath taps have slowed to a trickle,however the sink taps in same main bathroom all work along with all oher taps in the house.Any ideas?


  • #10
    K.Flyer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,565 ✭✭✭K.Flyer


    As already said Vertical pipe is supposed to be a bypass, but serves no purpose due to the position of the motorised zone valve. Close it up for now and have it moved at some point.
    None of that has any bearing to the low water pressure in your upstairs taps.
    Looking at all the ptfe tape on all the fittings I would say the installation was done by a DIY Amateur.


  • #11
    mulbot
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,926 ✭✭✭mulbot


    K.Flyer wrote: »
    As already said Vertical pipe is supposed to be a bypass, but serves no purpose due to the position of the motorised zone valve. Close it up for now and have it moved at some point.
    None of that has any bearing to the low water pressure in your upstairs taps.


    Nice,you found it. Thanks,yea I will have it sorted at some point. Do you also think to close off the bottom valve as the others have mentioned?


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  • #12
    K.Flyer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,565 ✭✭✭K.Flyer


    mulbot wrote: »
    Nice,you found it. Thanks,yea I will have it sorted at some point. Do you also think to close off the bottom valve as the others have mentioned?

    Close it fully, but not tight, then open it up approx 3/4 of a full rotation. Probably not the perfect position, but it shouldn't be too far off.


  • #13
    John.G
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,551 ✭✭✭John.G


    K.Flyer wrote: »
    Close it fully, but not tight, then open it up approx 3/4 of a full rotation. Probably not the perfect position, but it shouldn't be too far off.

    Has anyone ever seen a auto (differential pressure) balancing valve fitted in this position adjusted to give the correct balancing with all zones opened but increased flow and faster cylinder heat up with hot water zone only opened.


  • #14
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    John.G wrote: »
    Has anyone ever seen a auto (differential pressure) balancing valve fitted in this position adjusted to give the correct balancing with all zones opened but increased flow and faster cylinder heat up with hot water zone only opened.

    Your not going to get better reheat performance (unless the boiler was cycling) but you will get better boiler longevity as the pump is under less stress, the boiler has less issues with latent heat and due to improved circuit movement the boiler itself is under much less stress when feeding the smaller coil on the cylinder stopping the kettling noise(important in hard water areas) often heard when only the cylinder circuit is calling.


  • #15
    John.G
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,551 ✭✭✭John.G


    gary71 wrote: »
    Your not going to get better reheat performance (unless the boiler was cycling) but you will get better boiler longevity as the pump is under less stress, the boiler has less issues with latent heat and due to improved circuit movement the boiler itself is under much less stress when feeding the smaller coil on the cylinder stopping the kettling noise(important in hard water areas) often heard when only the cylinder circuit is calling.

    Just re the reheat or heating performance, the biggest influence on the coil performance is the coil inlet temperature followed by the coil circulation flow rate, some rapid recovery cylinders are based on coil inlet temperatures of up to 95C and flow rates of up to 40 LPM.
    If you take the "normal" cylinder as a example if the balancing valve needs to be throttled in to give say a coil flow rate of 5 LPM, then having a coil inlet temperature of 75C and assuming the cylinder at 45C will result in a coil return temperature of 60C and a coil power of 5.4 Kw. If the balancing valve is opened up fully and if this increases the flow rate to say 19.5 LPM then for the same coil inlet temperature of 75C and cylinder temperature of 45C will result in a coil outlet temperature of 70C and a coil power of 6.8 Kw or 26% greater than above.
    I don't wish to go on and on and bore you to death but the reason for this is that in the first instance the mean coil temperature is 67.5C and in the second case is 72.5C.


  • #16
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    John.G wrote: »
    Just re the reheat or heating performance, the biggest influence on the coil performance is the coil inlet temperature followed by the coil circulation flow rate, some rapid recovery cylinders are based on coil inlet temperatures of up to 95C and flow rates of up to 40 LPM.
    If you take the "normal" cylinder as a example if the balancing valve needs to be throttled in to give say a coil flow rate of 5 LPM, then having a coil inlet temperature of 75C and assuming the cylinder at 45C will result in a coil return temperature of 60C and a coil power of 5.4 Kw. If the balancing valve is opened up fully and if this increases the flow rate to say 19.5 LPM then for the same coil inlet temperature of 75C and cylinder temperature of 45C will result in a coil outlet temperature of 70C and a coil power of 6.8 Kw or 26% greater than above.
    I don't wish to go on and on and bore you to death but the reason for this is that in the first instance the mean coil temperature is 67.5C and in the second case is 72.5C.



    Your flow temperatures are to high unless you have hot water priority the industry standard for the boiler temperature is 65c and lower for condensing boilers, a rad sitting with a surface temperature of 70c will scald a person (usually a child) within 1 second of touching it as I have seen one was when a mother placed her small child in a position the child rolled on to the rad and couldn’t roll off and got very badly burnt.

    I was trained in a environment very different with no balancing valves at all we’d use the programmer to allow the hot water and heating requirements to be split or the satisfied on the cylinder stat, this allows smaller output boilers to be fitted as the hot water requirement is not added to the heat load, restricting the circulation on the the cylinder coil would cause the boiler to cycle.

    If you go in to most homes you will hear the boiler is on the verge of kettling due to the restriction on the coil which without a auto bypass burns out pumps and can have over heating issues that are rarely spotted.


  • #17
    John.G
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,551 ✭✭✭John.G


    gary71 wrote: »
    Your flow temperatures are to high unless you have hot water priority the industry standard for the boiler temperature is 65c and lower for condensing boilers, a rad sitting with a surface temperature of 70c will scald a person (usually a child) within 1 second of touching it as I have seen one was when a mother placed her small child in a position the child rolled on to the rad and couldn’t roll off and got very badly burnt.

    I was trained in a environment very different with no balancing valves at all we’d use the programmer to allow the hot water and heating requirements to be split or the satisfied on the cylinder stat, this allows smaller output boilers to be fitted as the hot water requirement is not added to the heat load, restricting the circulation on the the cylinder coil would cause the boiler to cycle.

    If you go in to most homes you will hear the boiler is on the verge of kettling due to the restriction on the coil which without a auto bypass burns out pumps and can have over heating issues that are rarely spotted.

    I must poke out the posts (I thought one of them was yours) but I am 100% sure that I read that some gas boilers are configured to run at the lowest possible temperature when on heating (to get the maximum condensing efficiency) but when calling for hot water that the boiler set point is automatically increased to 85C for the very reasons that I state above. I actually rang Vokera technical re a close relations Vision 20S re this and they said that the VisionS cannot be configured in this way, you adjust the boiler stat to suit which is a PITA if you are running at say 50C for economy but have to wait all day for the cylinder to recover and of course cant't raise the cylinder temp even occasionally for legionella protection if left at this lowish set point.


  • #18
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    John.G wrote: »
    I must poke out the posts (I thought one of them was yours) but I am 100% sure that I read that some gas boilers are configured to run at the lowest possible temperature when on heating (to get the maximum condensing efficiency) but when calling for hot water that the boiler set point is automatically increased to 85C for the very reasons that I state above. I actually rang Vokera technical re a close relations Vision 20S re this and they said that the VisionS cannot be configured in this way, you adjust the boiler stat to suit which is a PITA if you are running at say 50C for economy but have to wait all day for the cylinder to recover and of course cant't raise the cylinder temp even occasionally for legionella protection if left at this lowish set point.

    Your right it’s called hot water priority and it works very well if fitted correctly.


  • #19
    John.G
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,551 ✭✭✭John.G


    gary71 wrote: »
    Your right it’s called hot water priority and it works very well if fitted correctly.

    Thanks, So does it work in this way......if you have heating demand only on (say during the day) and there is a call for hot water; the the boiler set point is increased but is the heating demand zone(s) then commanded off until the hot water demand is satisfied OR do they both (heating+hot water) run at the higher set point until the hot water demand is satisfied or does priority really mean priority.

    And can a condensing oil boiler be configured in this way?


  • #20
    John.G
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,551 ✭✭✭John.G


    gary71 wrote: »
    Your right it’s called hot water priority and it works very well if fitted correctly.

    This the thread where this was discussed a few months ago.
    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=107696088


  • #21
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    John.G wrote: »
    Thanks, So does it work in this way......if you have heating demand only on (say during the day) and there is a call for hot water; the the boiler set point is increased but is the heating demand zone(s) then commanded off until the hot water demand is satisfied OR do they both (heating+hot water) run at the higher set point until the hot water demand is satisfied or does priority really mean priority.

    And can a condensing oil boiler be configured in this way?

    Oil boilers don’t modulate or have the funky controls gas boilers do to give different temperatures but you can have hot water priority by using the satisfied side of the cylinder stat to power the heating controls.

    With some gas boilers you have dedicated hot water priority that have a diverter valve within them and two flow pipes separating the two different temperatures.

    You have the another type that when wired correctly have electronics to control the two different temperatures but have one flow pipe, they can send higher temperatures around the rads if you don’t use the satisfied on the cylinder stat or a external 3 port valve to separate the heating and hot circuits.


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  • #22
    John.G
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,551 ✭✭✭John.G


    gary71 wrote: »
    Oil boilers don’t modulate or have the funky controls gas boilers do to give different temperatures but you can have hot water priority by using the satisfied side of the cylinder stat to power the heating controls. Admittedly not "as bad"

    With some gas boilers you have dedicated hot water priority that have a diverter valve within them and two flow pipes separating the two different temperatures.

    You have the another type that when wired correctly have electronics to control the two different temperatures but have one flow pipe, they can send higher temperatures around the rads if you don’t use the satisfied on the cylinder stat or a external 3 port valve to separate the heating and hot circuits.

    Thanks Gary, but I can't see why non modulation (oil fired) prevents some form of fairly basic "electrics" from sending a signal to the boiler set point to raise it up to its maximum or some intermediate temperature to ensure rapid cylinder heat up bearing in mind that the Grant can manually be set to a minimum of 65C and the Firebird to 60C and I would venture that most users use these minimum settings, it could also be configured to do this when hot water ONLY is requested by looking at the zone valve positions, this will help to maintain condensing efficiency when heating is also requested.
    As a matter of fact, raising the boiler set point temperature would help to reduce the boiler cycling when suppying hot water only because of the greater power being extracted by the cylinder coil.

    Leaving that aside, in the "Do I really need heating Controls" (link in my post 20, above), you say (post 9) you ca can send 60C to 80c to your cylinder for quick cylinder re heat times, so at this moment in time can you tell me what is your Ariston set point temperature of the primary water to achieve this (hot water heating only).

    Dardania also has a very interesting link to a Baxi boiler in post 23 of "Do I really need heating Controls".


  • #23
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    John.G wrote: »
    Thanks Gary, but I can't see why non modulation (oil fired) prevents some form of fairly basic "electrics" from sending a signal to the boiler set point to raise it up to its maximum or some intermediate temperature to ensure rapid cylinder heat up bearing in mind that the Grant can manually be set to a minimum of 65C and the Firebird to 60C and I would venture that most users use these minimum settings, it could also be configured to do this when hot water ONLY is requested by looking at the zone valve positions, this will help to maintain condensing efficiency when heating is also requested.
    As a matter of fact, raising the boiler set point temperature would help to reduce the boiler cycling when suppying hot water only because of the greater power being extracted by the cylinder coil.

    Leaving that aside, in the "Do I really need heating Controls" (link above in my post 20, above), you say (post 9) you ca can send 60C to 80c to your cylinder for quick cylinder re heat times, so at this moment in time can you tell me what is your Ariston set point temperature of the primary water to achieve this (hot water heating only).

    Dardania also has a very interesting link to a Baxi boiler in post 23 of "Do I really need heating Controls".

    Factory set at 70c but can be set as high as 82c.

    Can’t answer anything about oil it’s too smelly for me and they even put them outside where you can get wet:eek:


  • #24
    John.G
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,551 ✭✭✭John.G


    gary71 wrote: »
    Factory set at 70c but can be set as high as 82c.

    Can’t answer anything about oil it’s too smelly for me and they even put them outside where you can get wet:eek:

    Very good re your temperature, that's good to know.

    I have one of those smelly boilers and in over 13 years of service, the burner has NEVER locked out..... round of applause please for Firebird!.


  • #25
    Wearb
    Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators Posts: 6,302 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wearb


    I can envision a way of doing this with a couple of stats. I am being deliberately vague here because I don’t want anyone messing around with it without knowing the consequences.

    Please follow site and charter rules. "Resistance is futile"



  • #26
    agusta
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,590 ✭✭✭agusta


    John.G wrote: »
    Very good re your temperature, that's good to know.

    I have one of those smelly boilers and in over 13 years of service, the burner has NEVER locked out..... round of applause please for Firebird!.
    Yes,Well done.It will not happen the new firebirds though.i done a service and repair to a 8 year oil firebird a few weeks back and it cost 350 to get it right


  • #27
    John.G
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,551 ✭✭✭John.G


    agusta wrote: »
    Yes,Well done.It will not happen the new firebirds though.i done a service and repair to a 8 year oil firebird a few weeks back and it cost 350 to get it right

    Yes, I,m well aware of the Firebird condensing boiler problems from reading the posts on here, I must ensure that my own Firebird outlives me as I don't want to be put in the position of choosing between one of them and another well known and highly regarded make as I possess that old fashioned fault of loyalty.


  • #28
    Wearb
    Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators Posts: 6,302 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wearb


    John.G wrote: »
    Yes, I,m well aware of the Firebird condensing boiler problems from reading the posts on here, I must ensure that my own Firebird outlives me as I don't want to be put in the position of choosing between one of them and another well known and highly regarded make as I possess that old fashioned fault of loyalty.

    I don’t know if the other lads agree, but even the HE FB’s that I look after are holding their own IF the customers get me back annually. They will not tolerate any kind of neglect.

    Please follow site and charter rules. "Resistance is futile"



  • #29
    agusta
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,590 ✭✭✭agusta


    John.G wrote: »
    Yes, I,m well aware of the Firebird condensing boiler problems from reading the posts on here, I must ensure that my own Firebird outlives me as I don't want to be put in the position of choosing between one of them and another well known and highly regarded make as I possess that old fashioned fault of loyalty.
    Yes,i think most people tend to be loyal and stay with the brands that they have already.
    The firebird boiler i mentioned in previous post that cost 350,the real problem with it was the boiler was serviced every year,but the service guy wasnt competent.The main focus for a service technician in my opinion with a high efficiency boiler is the ensure the condensate trap works correctly and the condensate can get away freely.The firebird boiler that i went to,the condensate was completely blocked,this is what caused the damage.
    Firebird have improved the baffles and redesigned the condensate trap.They have improved.For me they have to be serviced annually,with the main focus being on the condensate getting away freely


  • #30
    jimf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,960 ✭✭✭jimf


    agusta wrote: »
    Yes,i think most people tend to be loyal and stay with the brands that they have already.
    The firebird boiler i mentioned in previous post that cost 350,the real problem with it was the boiler was serviced every year,but the service guy wasnt competent.The main focus for a service technician in my opinion with a high efficiency boiler is the ensure the condensate trap works correctly and the condensate can get away freely.The firebird boiler that i went to,the condensate was completely blocked,this is what caused the damage.
    Firebird have improved the baffles and redesigned the condensate trap.They have improved.For me they have to be serviced annually,with the main focus being on the condensate getting away freely

    I done my best


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