Freezing pipe prevention

[Middle France]

I wish to prevent freezing pipes during winter when my house is empty several months
I understand there is a special programme for this purpose. Please indicate how to program this on my Bosch CR 400 EMS Control Unit using as little oil as possible. Which is the lowest outside temperature I can set for the heating to start? Do all radiators need to be open? Can radiators be set low?
I have downloaded an android app valled Bosch Control, is this or another app compatible with my CR 400 EMS? I find the Instruction manual rather confusing. If nothing else I would like to activate the boiler when temperatures outside drop to below 5 centigrade (lowest recommended by Bosch) at the same time I would like the temperature inside the house to be as low as possible.
I have just bought this very large old house in the country and must leave it empty next Tuesday.
Thank you for all advice.

 

[king of pipes]

Fernox do a anti freeze inhibitor which you can add to the heating system, add a frost stat to bring the pump on a 5° also I would try to keep the tempreture to 10 °c this will of course require that boiler to operate on a very low setting ,while empty turn off your water supply and drain everything out hot and cold supplies. Kop

 

[Ric2013]

OP is in Canada. Probably does not want to keep house at 10°C due to cost.

 

[king of pipes]

Ice road trucker territory then ha ha ft can be -30° in winter well he must be French Canadian then hes got the flag , no option drain everything then or get a house sitter for peace of mind I know a couple who do it and make a decent living from it looking after their pets to . Kop

 

[gmartine]

OP is in Canada. Probably does not want to keep house at 10°C due to cost.

Huh....funny looking Canadian flag?

 

[Dan]

Username is middle france too.

Either way, advice still the same?

 

[centralheatking]

Username is middle france too.

Either way, advice still the same?

Middle France rarely gets down to minus 5 let alone -40 where my daughter lives in the Yukon
a honeywell frost stat £10 set at + 3/4 c will suffice. If its good enough for Scotland
then it will be dandy 500 miles due south. Morning Dan centralheatking

 

[gmartine]

The OP really want's to know how to program a controller that doesn't appear to be sold here in the UK... I would contact Bosch technical in France and try and find an English speaker, they must have a helpline.
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Middle France rarely gets down to minus 5 let alone -40 where my daughter lives in the Yukon
a honeywell frost stat £10 set at + 3/4 c will suffice. If its good enough for Scotland
then it will be dandy 500 miles due south. Morning Dan centralheatking

Err I just checked the temps in Bourges which is middle'ish France, gonna be freezing cold overnight next week...

Bourges Weather Forecast - Centre, FR

Get the latest weather forecast in Bourges, Centre, France for today, tomorrow, long range weather and the next 14 days, with accurate temperature, feels like and humidity levels.

www.worldweatheronline.com

 

[Ric2013]

OP is in Canada. Probably does not want to keep house at 10°C due to cost.

Not sure where I read the word 'Canada'. I must have a screw loose. My mistake.

 

[Middle France]

The house, is in France. Near a little town called Bressuire, between Nantes an Niort, the historic weather charts of this area are almost identical to those of London, just one degree warmer. It is unusual to get temperatures under 0 but it has happened to go - 9 for a few days some years. I am surprised the contol unit is not sold in England, I attach a photo. Perhaps someone will recognise it.

 

[chrisW50450]

CR 400 EMS

The boiler has a standard frost protection setting of 5°C which would be adequate for your locality. You can select the outside air temperature at which the frost protection will operate. See p34 of the installation manual (not the user one).

Leave the timer set to "off" and not the "été" setting.

 

[Murdoch]

OP - are you not over thinking this? Couldn't you just set the room stat low?

 

[Middle France]

Thank you so much Chris and Murdoch. Unfortunately we had to leave before your good advice was posted. I have done as Murdoch suggests. Left all radiators at a minimum the boiler at a minimum using just the special controller on the attachment below. The previous owner used this controller exclusively to control the temperature of the house. Chris obviously knows how to program and use this particular machine. I am so glad to have finally made contact with someone who understands the very complex controls. I studied the user manual but found it so complex I didn't dare tamper with it. I will pass the important information provided by Chris to the person I have left in charge in my absence and I believe that with the help of the technician that services the machine they will be able to set it up as adviced. All manuals in several languages are there. I hope to keep in contact with Chris. His advice will be of great help next winter also.

 

[Murdoch]

^^ good decision

I’ve been in many a refurb during the winter, where the outside temperature is ok, but without heating the internal temperature of the property is extremely low ...,

Our house was bought as a refurb after the heating was turned off and a short length of the incoming mains in the loft wasn’t insulated ...... a complete new inside was required

 

[chrisW50450]

Thank you so much Chris and Murdoch. Unfortunately we had to leave before your good advice was posted. I have done as Murdoch suggests. Left all radiators at a minimum the boiler at a minimum using just the special controller on the attachment below. The previous owner used this controller exclusively to control the temperature of the house. Chris obviously knows how to program and use this particular machine. I am so glad to have finally made contact with someone who understands the very complex controls. I studied the user manual but found it so complex I didn't dare tamper with it. I will pass the important information provided by Chris to the person I have left in charge in my absence and I believe that with the help of the technician that services the machine they will be able to set it up as adviced. All manuals in several languages are there. I hope to keep in contact with Chris. His advice will be of great help next winter also.

Without an actuator that "special controller" will only act as a mixing valve, primarily fitted to prevent excessively low return temperatures causing condensation in non-condensing boilers. Fitted with an actuator they are used to control outside temperature compensated flow temperatures or more often for underfloor heating systems.

 

[Middle France]

I really must investigate. I am surprised because the previous owner used only this to control temperature and I did the same quite successfully. I will pass this special controller information to the person in charge. Thank you. Chris you appear to have a house in France. May I ask if you far from Bressuire?

 

[chrisW50450]

Bressuire

Hi yes I have lived and worked here for 16 years. I'm around 300km away in 50 near Granville.

 

[Middle France]

I've heard Normandy is very beautiful, my sister lives near Bourges and wants to move there. I'll post when I get a report after the technician has visited today. I might want to make some changes to the heating system in the future. Perhaps we could keep in touch. Is there a way of contacting you through the forum?
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I have just been informed by the previous owner that I should turn off the boiler one hour before filing the fuel tank and wait another hour after filling it before turning the boiler on again. I don't see any logic in this advice. The tank is outside the house, in a separate hut in the garden about 35 metres away from house and boiler. Please advice. Thank you.

 

[chrisW50450]

I've heard Normandy is very beautiful, my sister lives near Bourges and wants to move there. I'll post when I get a report after the technician has visited today. I might want to make some changes to the heating system in the future. Perhaps we could keep in touch. Is there a way of contacting you through the forum?
[automerge]1575690603[/automerge]
I have just been informed by the previous owner that I should turn off the boiler one hour before filing the fuel tank and wait another hour after filling it before turning the boiler on again. I don't see any logic in this advice. The tank is outside the house, in a separate hut in the garden about 35 metres away from house and boiler. Please advice. Thank you.

Domestic fuel oil is often contains impuritiess and the solids settle out to the bottom of the tank. A delivery stirs things up so it is a good idea to leave it an hour or so after a delivery to allow the worst of it to re-settle.

I cannot see any logic in turnig it off an hour beforehand. That would assume they give you an accurate delivery time anyway.

 

[Middle France]

Thanks for solving the mystery. It makes perfect sense now.

 

[SJB060685]

I've only just read this post so apologise if this has been said above in other comment/comments. Over here if you have an external oil boiler fitted there will be a frost stat in situation, most of the time on boiler panel but I have seen them mounted to walls as well. That is set above freezing point obviously, usually around 5 degrees and when that senses the temperature drop it switches a live through a low limit stat on mounted on CH return, which in turn switches a live and brings on CH and boiler. The idea of the low limit stat is to only burn enough fuel to take the chill off, without it the boiler will keep cycling on and off until the outside temperature rises, which could be hours, days or weeks. Note that this needs to wired in properly, you don't switch the live from low limit stat to room stat to bring on the boiler as if the room stat is satisfied it wont bring the boiler on, it needs to be wired into CH wire of valve. And as said above any external boiler should have an antifreeze solution in the system as well.

 

[Middle France]

Thanks everyone for all advice. Since I am away I'll have to depend on the technician who will visit hopefully soon. I have ordered the boiler to be switched off during filling and on after 40 minutes. There is an android application BOSCH CONTROL that apart from controlling the boiler from one's mobile phone apparently simplifies settings tremendously. I wonder if one of you know. Is this or a similar app compatible with my control unit?

 

[Middle France]

Domestic fuel oil is often contains impuritiess and the solids settle out to the bottom of the tank. A delivery stirs things up so it is a good idea to leave it an hour or so after a delivery to allow the worst of it to re-settle.

I cannot see any logic in turnig it off an hour beforehand. That would assume they give you an accurate delivery time anyway.

I'm a bit worried again. I'm now in a different continent. The person who is in charge of my house sent me the photo attached. She is trying to get the technician to take a look but he is always busy.

Without an actuator that "special controller" will only act as a mixing valve, primarily fitted to prevent excessively low return temperatures causing condensation in non-condensing boilers. Fitted with an actuator they are used to control outside temperature compensated flow temperatures or more often for underfloor heating systems.

I am a bit worried again. I am in a different continent and the caretaker has informed me the boiler has stopped. She has contacted the technician but he is to busy to go to the house anny time soon. She has sent me a photo that I will atempt to attach. Not possible to attach photos. The screen reads. "Message de defaut. 6A/ 504 Il y a un defaut a l'interieur l'installation de chauffage.. Informer le chauffagist." Thanks for your interest.

 

[centralheatking]

I'm a bit worried again. I'm now in a different continent. The person who is in charge of my house sent me the photo attached. She is trying to get the technician to take a look but he is always busy.

I am a bit worried again. I am in a different continent and the caretaker has informed me the boiler has stopped. She has contacted the technician but he is to busy to go to the house anny time soon. She has sent me a photo that I will atempt to attach. Not possible to attach photos. The screen reads. "Message de defaut. 6A/ 504 Il y a un defaut a l'interieur l'installation de chauffage.. Informer le chauffagist." Thanks for your interest.

Looks like ...’ fault in boiler, call you heating engineer’ chking

 

[SJB060685]

This is a job for an experienced engineer. If your usual one is busy then perhaps leave it with your caretaker to find a suitable replacement