Hello all
I wonder if anyone has any idea what might be ailing my boiler? This requires quite an explanation for afirst post, so congrats to anyone who gets to the end!
So, I have a Worcester Bosch 30 Si Compact boiler, installed just lessthan a year ago by a reputable Gas-Safe registered plumber. Though notrelevant to my current issue, I will mention that within a couple of months thepump went, and it was replaced by a Worcester engineer under their standard warranty(8 year). This was worrying, but I guess components can fail so I try toremain positive about the Worcester brand, having done a fair bit of researchbefore I had the boiler replaced last year.
At the end of last year with the weather turning cold, I felt that thatthe boiler was not heating the house (2 bed bungalow) well enough. Theboiler was functioning, the rads were warm, (I’d bled them before autumn setin), and hot water fine. However, the house didn’t warm up sufficiently,especially on cold winter days. My initial thought then was that my insulationwas insufficient, allowing heat to escape easily, so after Christmas I laiddown another 200mm layer of insulation in the loft but the problempersists. For example, if on a Sat morn the room stat is reading 15 or 16degrees, having been off overnight, even with the heating on full all day theroom did not reach 20 degrees by evening? I can turn the heating onfor 24 hours, set the room stat high (25 degrees), and it will never reach thattemp. Now am I right in thinking something is amiss?
Having looked through the boiler handbook, I see that I can set thetemperature for the heating and also for hot water, so I set the temp of waterfor the heating loop to be 70 degrees. (And let me re-state that the radsare providing heat.) But when I look at the boiler control panel itself,even when my (rf) room stat is on high, and the program set to ON, the boilerdoes not remain on continuing producing hot water for the radiators. After a while, with water temp showing low 70’s,the burner switches off (the flame symbol disappears), and then Iimmediately see the temp of water in heat loop drop, as low as mid-50’s, andjust stays like that a couple of minutes, before the boiler starts up again, theflame symbol appears, and the water tempcreeps back up again. This is cyclical,and I have only measured a few cycles, but this process is being repeated every5 mins or so. And all the time, the roomstat is set to a high temp which has not been reached, so should be demandingheat.
So, my question is, is that normal behaviour, because I think that it isthe reason I seem to be unable to heat up my house sufficiently. I don’t know if there is an ‘average time’ toraise the house temp by one degree C, and I’m sure this varies depending onhouse size, but I have had boiler on for 12+ hours and not failed to achieved atemp increase of 5 degrees. That justdoesn’t seem right to me.
Apologies for the long explanation, but hopefully it conveys all theinfo reqd for one of more of the experts here to provide an opinion, which Ilook forward to reading.
Thanks and regards
Damian
I wonder if anyone has any idea what might be ailing my boiler? This requires quite an explanation for afirst post, so congrats to anyone who gets to the end!
So, I have a Worcester Bosch 30 Si Compact boiler, installed just lessthan a year ago by a reputable Gas-Safe registered plumber. Though notrelevant to my current issue, I will mention that within a couple of months thepump went, and it was replaced by a Worcester engineer under their standard warranty(8 year). This was worrying, but I guess components can fail so I try toremain positive about the Worcester brand, having done a fair bit of researchbefore I had the boiler replaced last year.
At the end of last year with the weather turning cold, I felt that thatthe boiler was not heating the house (2 bed bungalow) well enough. Theboiler was functioning, the rads were warm, (I’d bled them before autumn setin), and hot water fine. However, the house didn’t warm up sufficiently,especially on cold winter days. My initial thought then was that my insulationwas insufficient, allowing heat to escape easily, so after Christmas I laiddown another 200mm layer of insulation in the loft but the problempersists. For example, if on a Sat morn the room stat is reading 15 or 16degrees, having been off overnight, even with the heating on full all day theroom did not reach 20 degrees by evening? I can turn the heating onfor 24 hours, set the room stat high (25 degrees), and it will never reach thattemp. Now am I right in thinking something is amiss?
Having looked through the boiler handbook, I see that I can set thetemperature for the heating and also for hot water, so I set the temp of waterfor the heating loop to be 70 degrees. (And let me re-state that the radsare providing heat.) But when I look at the boiler control panel itself,even when my (rf) room stat is on high, and the program set to ON, the boilerdoes not remain on continuing producing hot water for the radiators. After a while, with water temp showing low 70’s,the burner switches off (the flame symbol disappears), and then Iimmediately see the temp of water in heat loop drop, as low as mid-50’s, andjust stays like that a couple of minutes, before the boiler starts up again, theflame symbol appears, and the water tempcreeps back up again. This is cyclical,and I have only measured a few cycles, but this process is being repeated every5 mins or so. And all the time, the roomstat is set to a high temp which has not been reached, so should be demandingheat.
So, my question is, is that normal behaviour, because I think that it isthe reason I seem to be unable to heat up my house sufficiently. I don’t know if there is an ‘average time’ toraise the house temp by one degree C, and I’m sure this varies depending onhouse size, but I have had boiler on for 12+ hours and not failed to achieved atemp increase of 5 degrees. That justdoesn’t seem right to me.
Apologies for the long explanation, but hopefully it conveys all theinfo reqd for one of more of the experts here to provide an opinion, which Ilook forward to reading.
Thanks and regards
Damian