Central Heating Help Needed

Palleon

Palleon

Palleon

Associate
Joined
27 May 2008
Posts
42
Over the summer I moved into a new house (not “new” but new for me). It had central heatings, radiators in every room etc. The heat was from an electric immersion heater in the airing cupboard, and it had a dial that read “Hot Water, Central Heating, off”.

During the summer I would have it set to Hot Water twice a day for an hour, and had no problems. My shower is electric, also no problems.
However – come winter, I turned to to Central heating.. and nothing. The radiators stayed cold.

I bled them. A lot. Still nothing. Eventually I noticed the pump at the bottom was making an odd noise so I called a plumber who came over, pulled out the pump, charged me £30 quid, and put in a new one. He left.
I tried again, still no heat.

He came back. He asked where the boiler was. I pointed out we were stood in front of the boiler and he had just changed the pump!

He said that was an immersion heater, not a boiler, and my central heating would not come from that. He searched around the house and found nothing. So he announced that the previous owners must have removed it, charged me another £30 and left….

I phoned the old owners in anger, and was told that they had not removed anything, and that immersion was their heating system, it just took an hour to heat up.

I am now totally confused. There is clearly no other boiler in the house, neither is there any telling gap where a boiler must have once been. No sticking out pipes, no holes in the wall.

I noticed a few people here were heating engineers.. so, any ideas? Could this guy I hired have been a con or someone who knew nothing about heating? He managed to change the pump ok so I guess he was qualified, but you never know these days.

Before I start saving for a new boiler next winter (I have no money this year for anything like that), can someone advise if this all sounds correct to you? Help!
 
have you tried leaving it turned to central heating for 1 hour if the old owners say it takes that long to heat up?
 
If it's any help my hot water tank has a coil that goes through it for a central heating system. The water in the two system does not mix, heat is just conducted through this coil. I don't use it, I actually have storage heaters but I imagine it would take a long time to get the radiators hot and the tank would cool down quickly unless the immersion heater was on.
 
Yes, I have left it on for a day. No heat is getting to the radiators, or to the pipes coming out of the system (except those going to the taps).
 
Do a hitler, take over the country, burn all the books in a can in your living room, save money and be warm?

When you bought the place wasn't it fairly clear how it all worked or something?
 
If it's got a switch on it than says "Central Heating" then surely it's capable (when working correctly) of providing central heating?
 
You wont have radiators run off an immersion heater surely? That's just back-up.

Silly question, but have a look at your fire in the front room, there's a chance you've got a back boiler & it's hiding behind there with the pilot light out :)
 
ive never heard of an immersion heater used for central heating, Its for heating the hot water only as far as i'm aware. A quick google would seem to back this up.
 
Redman said:
You wont have radiators run off an immersion heater surely? That's just back-up.

Silly question, but have a look at your fire in the front room, there's a chance you've got a back boiler & it's hiding behind there with the pilot light out :)
Click to expand...

Good shout, i used to have one of these, may be worth checking.
 
burns said:
If it's any help my hot water tank has a coil that goes through it for a central heating system. The water in the two system does not mix, heat is just conducted through this coil. I don't use it, I actually have storage heaters but I imagine it would take a long time to get the radiators hot and the tank would cool down quickly unless the immersion heater was on.
Click to expand...
That is most likely supposed to work the other way round..

Water is heated by a boiler and then passes through coil in the hot water cylinder heating your hot water.

The cylinder will also have ability to fit an electric immersion heater.

It sounds like yours is just set up to use electric.

Mine has both hooked up so I can choose to either use gas or electric for the hot water. Was great when my street's gas pipes were replaced and I was without gas for 3 days :)

Palleon, any chance you can post pictures of your setup or at least manufacturer/model?
 
Fourstar said:
That is most likely supposed to work the other way round..

Water is heated by a boiler and then passes through coil in the hot water cylinder heating your hot water.

The cylinder will also have ability to fit an electric immersion heater.

It sounds like yours is just set up to use electric.

Mine has both hooked up so I can choose to either use gas or electric for the hot water. Was great when my street's gas pipes were replaced and I was without gas for 3 days :)

Palleon, any chance you can post pictures of your setup or at least manufacturer/model?
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That would make sense. On mine the coil is not connected to anything, I didn't even realise it was there until the tank started leaking where it exits.:rolleyes:
 
Redman said:
Silly question, but have a look at your fire in the front room, there's a chance you've got a back boiler & it's hiding behind there with the pilot light out :)
Click to expand...

This is what I have, a coal fire parkray backboiler that heats the immersion tank & radiators.

During the summer I just use the (electric) immersion for hot water
 
Are the other houses around you the same build / age? Is so they probably have the same system so you could ask them.

Immersion heater for central heating? Surely that will lead to huge bills!

edit - plumber sounds like a cowboy tbh.
 
Thanks for the replies all. I will post a picture later on when I'm home.

As for the behind the fire, there may be something in that. Its one of these 1970's style gas fires, but if I look underneath it I can see an additional set of controls. Although I cant see any water pipes coming in or out of it.
 
Palleon said:
Thanks for the replies all. I will post a picture later on when I'm home.

As for the behind the fire, there may be something in that. Its one of these 1970's style gas fires, but if I look underneath it I can see an additional set of controls. Although I cant see any water pipes coming in or out of it.
Click to expand...

Fiver says it's got Baxi Bermuda or something similar either underneath, or if you lift the fire cover off, on the side. But there should be a plate with instructions on re-lighting the pilot somewhere visible underneath, if there's a vent type thing on the bottom, see if that lifts out it may be on there. There's likely be an ignitor switch one side, and a bit you hold in for the gas on the other side.

If you see these, or similar, congratulations you've got a back boiler ;)

Oh and as for the pipes, they may well be added to the side of the chimney and boarded over, your fire's not off centre is it?
 
Palleon said:
Thanks for the replies all. I will post a picture later on when I'm home.

As for the behind the fire, there may be something in that. Its one of these 1970's style gas fires, but if I look underneath it I can see an additional set of controls. Although I cant see any water pipes coming in or out of it.
Click to expand...

Had a similar thing in one of my uni houses. There was a panel that you could remove on the bottom of the fireplace to expose the controls. Then just a black button to press in to light it up.
 
Success of a sort, or at least progress.

As some of you clever folk correctly surmised there was indeed some sort of boiler under the fire in the lounge. I managed to get the pilot light lit, and when I turned on the plug upstairs by the immersion, the boiler went "whoosh" and all fired up.

However, within about 4-5 mins, it went off, and went back to the pilot light only. The radiators, and the pipes, stayed cold. I left it an hour, then turned the upstairs controls off and on again, and again it went "whoosh" this time for about 3 minutes before going back to just the pilot light.

So... now I need to work out why its going out, and why its not heating the radiators or the pipes leading to them! Could it be that no water is being pumped through, so its getting to its set heat level quickly, and turning itself off again? I have taken some photos which I'll post as soon as I work out how :)
 
Definitely won't have central heating run off the immersion heater, that would be ridiculous (unless it was a thermal store - like a "Boilermate" - but we won't go into that).

As mentioned, probably a back boiler behind the fire. Usually involves holding in the larger grey button and pressing the smaller black one (piezo igniter, it will "click" as the spark is made) and looking for the pilot flame. Keep holding the grey one and then let go after about 10 seconds. If there is already a small pilot flame before you start then it may just be the boiler thermostat turned down, this will be a dial with numbers from 0-5 (or similar) which may have been turned to 0 when the last occupants left.

Edit: posted before last reply. Look for a thermostat somewhere on the wall in the house, may need turning up (will go from approx 0 - 30 degrees).
 
Photos of the boiler thing. Warning - its a mess!

005.JPG

The immersion tank thing.

006.JPG

An odd control box (bottom left from above)

011.JPG

The pump at the bottom (which is hot to touch when turned on, but doesnt seem to do much else)

013.JPG

The main control, when turned to on, it goes Whoosh downstairs.

014.JPG

The fire downstairs

017.JPG

The "boiler" underneath it, covered in dust and **** knows what else! _ This is set to Max.

p.s. I found the box on the wall, turned it to max, nothing happened.
 
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