Motorised valve - manual close

[tecnam2011]

Hi guys, our conventional oil boiler heating system has only ever heated our radiators and our hot water at the same time; we have no isolated hot water control, just a timer that does both. I'd love to be able to just heat our hot water from the boiler during the summer.

I had a look in our boiler house and I can see what I believe to be a motorised valve which is set to Manual (always open?). My question is, could I switch this to Auto (closed?) during the summer and since we have possibly nothing that would electrically operate this valve would it heat only our hot water?

I moved this switch to Auto earlier although it seems to still heating both our radiators and HW. I've attached a photo of the valves and connections. Anyone any ideas of what might be going on here? Thank you!

 

[exedon2]

That's a 2 port valve controlling your hot water (perfectly correct as you look to have a pressurised cylinder)
If its the only motorised valve you have you need another one on heating so that heating and/or hot water are independently controlled.
Do you have a room thermostat?

 

[tecnam2011]

That's a 2 port valve controlling your hot water (perfectly correct as you look to have a pressurised cylinder)
If its the only motorised valve you have you need another one on heating so that heating and/or hot water are independently controlled.
Do you have a room thermostat?

Thanks for your reply.

It is the only motorised valve that we have. We do have a thermostat in our hall, but I'm almost certain it doesn't work. I recently took the face off it and the live in had no voltage.

 

[exedon2]

Looking like you need to convert your system to 2 motorised valves (S plan) to get separate control.
You will need a working room thermostat and probably an new programmer (time clock)
May be worth considering something that could be smart phone controlled eg Hive Nest ect.

 

[tecnam2011]

Looking like you need to convert your system to 2 motorised valves (S plan) to get separate control.
You will need a working room thermostat and probably an new programmer (time clock)
May be worth considering something that could be smart phone controlled eg Hive Nest ect.

Cheers. For my own info, what would be the use of the hot water motorised valve in this configuration? It was in 'Manual' position before I touched it.

Also, if the room thermostat was working would it be possible to have it turned down (off) and the boiler 'on' to heat hot water only, or am I out of luck altogether?

Thanks!

 

[tecnam2011]

Basically I'd love to have a simple fix (even if it's to manually close a valve or something) to shut off the central heating so that our boiler only does hot water for a couple of months.

 

[exedon2]

Your existing motorised valve is controlled by the thermostat on your cylinder all that valve will ever do is turn boiler flow to cylinder off. Heating will be always on with current set up.
You could turn all your radiators of except one .
Don't turn them all off chances are there is no bypass on your system
One radiator needs to be on.

 

[tecnam2011]

Your existing motorised valve is controlled by the thermostat on your cylinder all that valve will ever do is turn boiler flow to cylinder off. Heating will be always on with current set up.
You could turn all your radiators of except one .
Don't turn them all off chances are there is no bypass on your system
One radiator needs to be on.

Ah ok, I hadn't considered that, good advice. Thanks for taking the time to respond 🙂