Radiators hot when off........HELP

[karenb8610]

Had a new boiler fitted a few weeks ago ( ideal icos HE24 ) to replace 15 year old.
All apppeared fine but now with warmer weather (ish ) we turned the heating down. Result - no hot water.
Called out Britisg Gas ( have their 3* cover, they didn't fit the boiler , gas safe fitter did ) BG man said new boiler was wired wrong (not on all the time, so live feed not correct ).
Get the electrician back, rewires............then we had hot water BUT then it appeared to be connected to the heating thermostat....ie. water was only warm (thermostat on hot water tank on 70 ) room thermosat on 12......Only got hot HOT water if room thermostat was turned up to 20.
Electricain back again, we've bought a new programmer (original, so possible source of problems ) all wired up & checked.
We now have hot water.............BUT even though the room thermostat is set at 10, the heating is off ( hot water on ) the radiators are hot !!
Any suggestions..........please

 

[foley]

Sounds like the Motorised valves could be installed incorrectly, Or it could still be wired up all wrong, If the heating is on while the hot water is on then both motorised valve must be open, Or has it got a 3 way motorized valve?

 

[karenb8610]

ermm, sorry to be really thick here.
But is the motorised valve next to the hot water tank ??
BG man reckoned the valve ( replaced 2 years ago with the old system was okay )
How do I know the diff between 2 & 3 way valves?

 

[foley]

ermm, sorry to be really thick here.
But is the motorised valve next to the hot water tank ??
BG man reckoned the valve ( replaced 2 years ago with the old system was okay )
How do I know the diff between 2 & 3 way valves?

I thoght the motorised valve had been changed when you had a new boiler, Yes the motorised valve will be next to your cylinder, Sounds to me it's still wired wrong, Hard to tell without looking at the job, But if you say you put your hot water on and your heating comes on aswell, Defo something wrong with the wiring if you call for hot water and the heating comes on aswell,

 

[karenb8610]

Thanks for the reply.
Electricians been out 3 times & is now ' certain ' its right.

Problem may now be more complicated, we turned hot water & heating off to allow the rads to cool to re-test the problem.
Husbands convinced that it wactually was working fine when the electrician left 5 hours ago.
Turned hot water back on.........new boiler fired up, made some noises ( never done that before ) & went back to standby ???
Now seems to be completely KO'd !!!!
Just has the ' O ' displayed, ( which is standby mode ) regardless of hot water or heating switched on.
Don't know if I need to get the plumber back now ........... or could it still be electrical.
The new boiler is supposed to flash codes if its got a fault ???
Just to clarify, the plumber only replaced the boiler & flue.......& we've now replaced the programmer.

 

[newbie1]

how do these installers manage to leave the customers house with the money without demonstrating the boiler is working
i never leave or take money until all demonstrated as working

 

[karenb8610]

Well, British gas have been out again & it appears that the electrician has actually made it worse 🙁
Now we have no boiler at all, it switches on but doesn't fire up for hot water or heating. It is definetly a wiring problem he says ( not even power to the room thermostat when he tested now)
He has told us we need a heating engineer electrician ................who's willing to sort out somebody elses mess !
He did know someone, he called them & they agreed 🙂 , thing is , that was Saturday & they were supposed to be coming at 9.30 this morning & whilst it is only just after 10 I am beginning to loose hope..................
If this gut doesn't turn up, how do I find someone who can actually sort this out .................. ? Is it just a case of getting out the yellow pages & hoping..............
Any ideas welcome, I live in Morley , Leeds.

 

[newbie1]

the actual wiring side is fairly straight forward
the boiler will need a permanent 3 amp fused supply of live /neutral earth
then it will need a live from from pump and a switched live from wiring center
the wiring center is then straight forward if your able to trace wires again not too bad
i would estimate that you wont see any change from 150.00 from a heating engineer to sort this mess out

 

[doitmyself]

i would estimate that you wont see any change from 150.00 from a heating engineer to sort this mess out

That's fine, but you need to let the original installer/electrician know in writing that you are employing someone else to sort out the problem and that you hold them responsible for any costs involved.

 

[karenb8610]

The origial guy & electrician have spent all day yesterday trying to fix the problem.
They've now replaced the valve ( he said the old one had an intermittent fault ) They've done something with the wiring, a wire to the boiler appeared scorched so was replaced ( this was causing at intermittent fault also )
He left & we all thought was working correctly, programmer switches heating & hot water off at 10.30 pm,& boiler goes to '0' status, all good.
45 mins later, get a quick shower , boiler fires up ,goes to ' c' satus ???? radiators come on ????
Programmer says both hot water & heating are off,
He's coming back tomorrow, with the electrician , he admits he has no idea whats wrong with it .The only thing which appears to get the boiler to go ' off ' is when I've switched the thermostat on the hot water tank to 0........
Any advice I can politely give him tomorrow ???

 

[moony]

hi karen - like newbie said - wiring is pretty straight forward for someone who knows what theyre doing....

there may be a genuine problem with the boiler.

let them come and look at it tmrw.

scorched wire in the boiler isnt a good sign!

see what they say tmrw if youve still not got it sorted then suggest he calls the boiler manufacturer to report a fault.

 

[HHC]

Hi

Sounds to me that there may now be a fault with the boiler as the electrical side has been checked so many times. PCB faults with these boilers are common and could possibly be at fault. As q-plumb said get your installer to call Ideal to come and fix it.

Glenn

 

[Mbear]

The origial guy & electrician have spent all day yesterday trying to fix the problem.
They've now replaced the valve ( he said the old one had an intermittent fault ) They've done something with the wiring, a wire to the boiler appeared scorched so was replaced ( this was causing at intermittent fault also )
He left & we all thought was working correctly, programmer switches heating & hot water off at 10.30 pm,& boiler goes to '0' status, all good.
45 mins later, get a quick shower , boiler fires up ,goes to ' c' satus ???? radiators come on ????
Programmer says both hot water & heating are off,
He's coming back tomorrow, with the electrician , he admits he has no idea whats wrong with it .The only thing which appears to get the boiler to go ' off ' is when I've switched the thermostat on the hot water tank to 0........
Any advice I can politely give him tomorrow ???

best advice you can give him would be don't mess about with things you don't understand. Wiring In ch systems is very simple, I can never understand how sparkys can't seem to get their head round it. Unfortunately the boiler you have chosen isn't the best to be honest. If it was me coming to fix it for u I'd want to start fresh and pull all the wires out the junction box and do it myself. That way ur not depending on sum1 else doing the majority of it correctly, a fresh rewire of the ch/hw circuit is what you need IMO

 

[fuzzy]

best advice you can give him would be don't mess about with things you don't understand. Wiring In ch systems is very simple, I can never understand how sparkys can't seem to get their head round it. Unfortunately the boiler you have chosen isn't the best to be honest. If it was me coming to fix it for u I'd want to start fresh and pull all the wires out the junction box and do it myself. That way ur not depending on sum1 else doing the majority of it correctly, a fresh rewire of the ch/hw circuit is what you need IMO

electricians always seem to mess up boiler wiring!
im not so sure he wiring is simple, its like anything else, easy if u know how but nt straight forward to anyone else, many plumbers dont have a clu how it works

 

[Mbear]

Fuzzy

if u have been taught well how to wire systems then it will come naturally (especially post apprenticeship yrs) to u. Ur correct IMO saying that alot of plumbers and sparks are unsure of the wiring of a ch system. But I've got to be fair here, I'm not a plumber,I'm a heating eng, i repair and install boilers/systems. Ask me to plumb a bathroom suite in and I'm afraid I wuoldnt know where to start, I never took much interest in that side of things. The moral of the story Is-each to their own

 

[fuzzy]

Fuzzy

if u have been taught well how to wire systems then it will come naturally (especially post apprenticeship yrs) to u. Ur correct IMO saying that alot of plumbers and sparks are unsure of the wiring of a ch system. But I've got to be fair here, I'm not a plumber,I'm a heating eng, i repair and install boilers/systems. Ask me to plumb a bathroom suite in and I'm afraid I wuoldnt know where to start, I never took much interest in that side of things. The moral of the story Is-each to their own

very well said mate

the public and potential students dont realise there are actual a few different trades all under the term 'plumber' i think the word plumber is a catch ll name for domestic bathroom installers, ch installers, boiler repair, Gas engineer, commercail installer, pipe fitter etc etc

colleges run 3 differnt NVQ's - plumbing, heating and vent and gas. try telling the general public that!

 

[student plumber]

very well said mate

the public and potential students dont realise there are actual a few different trades all under the term 'plumber' i think the word plumber is a catch ll name for domestic bathroom installers, ch installers, boiler repair, Gas engineer, commercail installer, pipe fitter etc etc

colleges run 3 differnt NVQ's - plumbing, heating and vent and gas. try telling the general public that!

You've hit the nail on the head. I did some research on the net with limited knowledge I had at the time looking at courses, but everything seems to be plumbing and heating.
It was some time later I discovered there's different avenues.
I had been wanting to go gas safe afterwards no, it's not that clear that you can go straight into gas and bypass plumbing.
The public don't know and no one's trying to tell them.

Being a member of the public plumbers are regarded as unblocking toilets and sinks as my niece and nephew laughed at me, but I've worked in factories and thought about the work over head. When I was their age I wanted to be a doctor or electrician. Plumbing😕 so there's work to be done.

Unfortunately that gives ideas about how much they should pay and programmes like Watchdog don't help. On one occasion these two plumbers 😱 sorry but I don't know who they were, did a gas fire properly and they were shown for about 2 seconds, from the same dodgy company that sent someone out either side and did jobs badly, yet were screened for several minutes 😕. Stalin would've been proud.

Perhaps www.good-plumbers-TV.wishful.thinking, but who'll pay for it??? Gas Safe???

I told someone about the theory and maths on my course their reply, "but plumbing's always been considered a career for people who might not do anything else as it's more practical". No mention of regs or training, looks like we're all in the ****.

 

[hamish72]

Your sparky sounds like one of those who keeps telling DIY,ers to get a proffesional in to do the job propper !!

 

[Red nalkram]

Icos is a simple boiler to Wire. Perm live on L3 switched on L2 from the external controls. If your sparky has wired system in line with a standard S Plan (2 valves) or Y plan (one three way valve) you should have no probs. If "0" shows on the boiler this means there is no feed from the external controls and the boiler is in standby. If "C" is displayed with the burner light on, then you have a call from the external controls. If the external controls (prog and Stats) go off, the "C" will remain on without the burner light for approx 6 mins. If the externals are off and the boiler is still running, or sitting on "C" with the burner light flashing, then there is still power from the external controls. Eithere sticking micro switch on the motorised valve, bad wiring, or if a three way valve (no names mentioned) if the HW satisfies first then the room stat goes off, this can leave a residual voltage of 70 -200vac to the boiler. A .47 capaciter will resolve this fault but it is rare to see. It is unlikely to be a boiler issue as the boiler either fires when power is on L2 or sits on standby when no power on L2.

 

[stevetheplumber]

Fuzzy

if u have been taught well how to wire systems then it will come naturally (especially post apprenticeship yrs) to u. Ur correct IMO saying that alot of plumbers and sparks are unsure of the wiring of a ch system. But I've got to be fair here, I'm not a plumber,I'm a heating eng, i repair and install boilers/systems. Ask me to plumb a bathroom suite in and I'm afraid I wuoldnt know where to start, I never took much interest in that side of things. The moral of the story Is-each to their own

just shows how plumbing has changed in thiry odd years when i did my apprentiship we were taught basics of everything and we covered anything that other trades didnt do slating leadwork iron copper cast and new fangled plastic pipe hot cold heating compressed air in fact if it went in a pipe we were expected to deal with it as a result im plumber roofer glazier tiler gas fitter pipefiter electrican drainage engineer and welder
it was this variety of work that i used to love now every one winds up doing one thing you might as well be on the production line in a factory

 

[fuzzy]

its difficult to fit a boiler without being a plumber, heating engineer, gas fitter and electrician