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!
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!
