Help... new house, confusing central heating and hot water

[Quixoticish]

Hi there! I thought I'd register and beg a question of more knowledgeable folks than myself.

I've just moved into a new house and it has a very confusing hot water/central heating system, to me at least as I've never really seen anything like this.

We have a large boiler in the utility room (an Ideal Standard 50N 1970's thing). This appears to have three wall mounted switches to turn it on, a standard on/off switch with a red light, and two smaller switches labelled boiler and pump. There is a manual timer sat next to these.

We have a room thermostatic/twisty knob temperature control in the living room.

Upstairs in the airing cupboard in the bathroom there is an immersion tank (again, looks like 1970's kit) that appears to have one switch attached to it, a very old black affair that connects to a small round bit at the top of the immersion tank that simply says immersion on/off on it.

Now we tend to keep the immersion heater switch turned off (I assumed it was powered by electricity) as we don't need 24/7 hot water and would sooner save a bit on bills. For the past few days though since we've had the heating on we've noticed hot water available from the tap. Cue lots of confused scratching of heads.

I assume the Ideal Standard boiler is also heating up the hot water in the immersion upstairs if that is the case why is there a switch connected to the top of the immersion tank?

Also, would there be any way to stop it heating up the hot water and just use it to heat up the radiators, or is it all part of the same system?

Many thanks in advance guys!

 

[barronbathrooms]

Your boiler (heating) will be connected to the indirect cylinder. you will see 2 pipes normally at the side of the cylinder. They heat up the cylinder when the boiler is on. Is there a valve in the cylinder cupboard or by the pump? Sometimes on older systems there is no valve to control between hot water only and heating. If you want to save on your bills it would be wise to upgrade your system.

 

[Simon F]

Hello and welcome along,
the immersion heater is only a secondary source of heating the hot water cylinder.
with an old boiler it is probably gravity feed hot water ( 4 pipes coming of boiler )
or will be piped to always give hot water when heating is on.
doesn't sound like a cause for concern

 

[Quixoticish]

Thanks chaps.

So is the pump needed for the heating as well, or is that just for heating the hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard?

I'm afraid it's a rented house so upgrading is out of the question.

 

[snowhead]

Leave the switch with the red light on.

For hot water only,, Turn on the Boiler switch.
For heating, Turn on the boiler switch AND the pump switch.

The timer may or may not be an override for the pump switch, or may only come into effect when the pump switch is on.
The twisty thermostat control will cut the pump off (and hence heating) regardless of whether it's time controlled or not.

The immersion control is for the heater in the tank and is totally independant of the boiler.
It may be tho' that the timer is for immersion heater control and not heating.


As said above you will always get hot water when the boiler is on.

 

[Quixoticish]

Thanks again. This is slowly starting to make sense.

I'll have to investigate and see if there's a way to get hot water without the central heating on.

 

[mountainman]

Turn the room thermostat way down, that should do what you desire.

 

[Quixoticish]

Apologies, that should be the other way around. Central heating without hot water. Seems like a waste of energy if we aren't going to use it.

 

[Mike Jackson]

I very much doubt that there is a separate control for the hot water due to the nature of the system.

 

[mountainman]

I very much doubt that there is a separate control for the hot water due to the nature of the system.

I agree..

 

[Simon F]

Apologies, that should be the other way around. Central heating without hot water. Seems like a waste of energy if we aren't going to use it.

why would you not want hot water on a daily basis?

it is not a waste any way because if the cylinder is heated and the hot water not used any heat that comes off the cylinder is into the airing cupboard and into the house. or is the cylinder in the loft/garage etc?
the water that is heated and pumped around the radiators is not used as hot water, imaging the hot water cylinder to be a radiator and then you will be less concerned.

 

[Quixoticish]

why would you not want hot water on a daily basis?

it is not a waste any way because if the cylinder is heated and the hot water not used any heat that comes off the cylinder is into the airing cupboard and into the house. or is the cylinder in the loft/garage etc?
the water that is heated and pumped around the radiators is not used as hot water, imaging the hot water cylinder to be a radiator and then you will be less concerned.

Well there is a power shower fitted and a small dish washer. Washing up and getting washed seem to be the two main uses and since they're both accounted for having the hot water on all of time seemed a waste, to heat up a full tank of water just for it to go relatively unused apart from the odd washing of hands.

 

[SimonG]

Convert to an s plan so you have seperate control of heating and hot water, otherwise you are stuck with heating the hot water whenever you want the rads on.

 

[Quixoticish]

Thanks SimonG. Unfortunately I have no idea what that means and (more importantly) it's a rented property so it's not my decision. I'll bring it up with my landlord the next time I see him though.

 

[jtsplumbing]

If its a rented house get the landlord to explain how things work, sounds a very basic system switch with red light ,main power stays on all the time, if you want hot water use switch with boiler, if you want heating use switch with pump this proberly go's to time control to turn pump/boiler on, System this old needs to be brought into the 21st century, will not be cheep to run