Old Back Boiler Help

[homerz]

Hi folks i'm new to this site...we just bought a house which had an open fire with a chimney back boiler combined in the chimney with an oil fired central heating system all running on the same circut....we had the fire removed and back boiler removed from the chimney and the builder just capped the pipes going to and from the back boiler....now the oil fired central heating will not come on i'm guessing due to the loop being broken and not being replumbed properly......could any one give me some advice as which of the pipes in the images would need to be reconnected to get the heating working again......there are three pipes two at the top and a lower pipe

 

[Best]

Welcome Homerz!
Heating link ups I am very familiar with & usually oil with a wrap around back boiler like you probably had. But there are a lot of different ways to link the two boilers & pipe them.
Also, in my experience, there were a lot of idiots joining them up wrong and improvising.
You really should have had a heating engineer disconnecting that boiler - not a builder!
Often the 2 gravity pipes (primaries) that go to heat the copper cylinder are actually what vents and feeds the entire system, including the oil boiler.
I would strongly advise you do not use the oil boiler at all until you get an engineer out to see what system you have & how to make it safe & working again!
Whereabouts are you?

 

[homerz]

Hi Best thx for the reply i'm In Northern Ireland..... we had originally wanted to hook up a boiler stove but were talked out of it,i wonder would it be easier to hook up the boiler stove after all lol.......either way now we need to get something sorted as we have zero heating i spoke to a few local plumbers and heating guys who didn't seem to know an awful lot about these types of systems and wanted nothing to do with it.....i see what you mean about the vent so i guess its not just a case of rejoing the water pipes to complete the flow.....as the third pipe may have been the vent for the entire system and hot water tank......always the way whats seems like a simple job turns into a nightmare lol

 

[Best]

Strangely, I had the feeling you were from Northern Ireland!
Very common those link up oil to wrap around boilers were here.
What general area in Ulster are you?

 

[homerz]

Hi best I'm based in Antrim the house is indeed old cira 1947 don't know what to do
Plumbers don't seem to know and heating engineers are also clueless
Prob too old a system

 

[Best]

Frankly, most of these "heating engineers" are not what I would call real heating engineers.
They talk the talk but have little or no experience, especially on link up systems. Don't assume that a middle aged bloke has actually had much experience at plumbing! He might have started from another profession recently. It happens.
You might need a reworking of pipes in hot press, but I would recommend the pipes from the fire to the cylinder are not removed if disconnected as they might be useful in the future if they are okay. However, I think from your photos that they might be 22mm? They need to be 28mm for primaries

 

[homerz]

Hi i had a closer look today and yes one is a 22mm and the other two 28mm assuming i leave the pipes insitu would it be possible to rejoin then at the tank or the hot water cylinder ?

 

[Best]

That seems to be quite possible. But I wonder if there is, or was a circulating pump nearby to the fire, or perhaps in the attic?
Needs someone clued up to check it out, but my guess is it probably is likely the hotpress is where it can be sorted. But I am assuming it is a standard link up, with some sort of dual coil copper cylinder? This would be either a twin coil cylinder or a single coil cylinder with a top entry type of coil screwed into the place an immersion can go.
Oil is not as dangerous as a solid fuel fire because oil is thermostic controlled, but it still must have some way to have expansion etc. Get an engineer who knows about solid fuel to oil link ups. Old system, or not, it is usually straight forward for an experienced heating person.

 

[Gray0689]

There is probably an injector tee with a pump as said near or in hotpress
There is that many ways it could of been done as best says someone Realy needs to take a look for you

 

[Best]

There is probably an injector tee with a pump as said near or in hotpress
There is that many ways it could of been done as best says someone Realy needs to take a look for you

Yes, I thought it likely an injector tee 3 to 4 pipe change. I usually did them like that.

 

[Gray0689]

Yes loads like that over here seemed to be the in thing for a long time
Works well so I guess why change

 

[homerz]

I have a plumber comming tommor to have a look i hope he can sort it out just worried about the vent pipe im sure that the flow pipes should be able to be rerouted ok can an oil fired system run without a vent ? my immersion heater in downstairs and in the attic its a bungalo it has two tanks im guessing the main tank and another smaller one which i guess is for the vent

 

[Best]

Yours is obviously an open vented system and the oil boiler will require some sort or vent with a feed/vent pipe. This is an alternative - a sealed system, which is easy to do & by far the best way to have an oil or gas heating system. But the system needs to be sound & have no weeps.
Your plumber hopefully will advise you and sort it if he knows much.