Getting To Grips With The Killer Heating System
I think it is best to document what I have here first. Engineers have problems and try to solve them. Others have theories and try to prove them.
With any problem you start by writing down what you’ve got.
The Boiler
This is a fairly common Vaillant boiler.
The Boiler
It has been regularly serviced and when I took the house over I found that the control circuit was broken, so a new one was fitted.
I have no manuals for it, as is the case for everything else in this house.
It would appear to be running well.
Boiler Temperature And Pressure
But I have no idea if the temperature and pressure shown are correct.
The Control Timer
This is a pretty standard Honeywell product.
The Control Timer
It seems to work without trouble.
What the boxes underneath do, I know not!
The Downstairs Manifold
The pipes to the underfloor heating end up here.
The Downstairs Manifold
The pipes always seem to be warm when the boiler is on, with the individual zone controllers having no effect.
So in other words the only way to control the heating is from the master thermostat.
Upstairs there is a similar manifold, which is just as out of control. I’ve got it switched off, so I only have heating downstairs and let it find its way up the stairs.
My House Is Trying To Kill Me!
23:00 I’m sitting here with the heating off. I have the underfloor heating box open and the pipes are cold, so no heat is coming into the room from the heating. The air conditioning is off. But I can feel the temperature is rising.
I should say that I have a Maplin temperature meter and this agrees with the one in the air conditioning system. They are both saying 22°C and forty percent humidity.
I’ve checked and the boiler has shut down, but the temperature downstairs is going up and is now at 24°C and rising. All the floors downstairs are hot, when surely they should be cold as the boiler switched itself off an hour ago. In fact, I think I might have started to see the temperature rise start when it shut itself off at ten o’clock.
It’s the sort of story you read in horror films. But now we do know I was boiled as it actually gets hotter in this house overnight.
It also explains why I felt so much better in Liverpool. It wasn’t Liverpool, but it wasn’t being in this killer house.
23:30 – The meter was showing 25°C when I brought it upstairs and threw the windows wide open, which brought the temperature back to 22°C.
23:50 – The meter was showing 24°C downstairs and the floors are still hot. The air-con meter shows 20°C upstairs, but it seems rather hotter than that to me.
I shall be doing some serious investigating in the morning.
One conclusion is that neither the top or the bottom zones work. If the heating is on it piles heat out willy-nilly no matter what the settings of the thermostats.
Plumbers/Electricians One House Nil
We’ve finally got somewhere today in my battle with the killer central heating system.
The team of expert electricians and plumbers have just left and they found the following.
The pump that controlled the hot water to my showers was jamming, which explained the occasional non-hot water problems.
The room thermostats have no effect on controlling the hot water to the underfloor central heating. So if the master switch for downstairs is set to warm that part of the house, you get full flow upstairs. Hence the top floor just gets hotter and hotter.
I’ve now switched the heating off upstairs permanently and it is still holding at 23.5°C, which is a bit hot.
But at least we’ve won the first battle against Jerry.
What I can’t understand is why he didn’t fit underfloor electric central heating. We had that in the flat in the Barbican in the 1970s and it was as reliable as the finest Swiss watch.
This Heath Robinson system of pipes should never have been installed. I must say I’m tempted to rip it all out and replace it with an electric one.
The only thing against this is the running costs. On the other hand the house is so well insulated, that fixing the current faults in the system will probably be enough to make the house comfortable.
A Building Firm With Foundations
I thought this was an article from the BBC’s web site, that needed reposting.
R Durtnell and Sons are now in the hands of the 13th generation of the family.
To contrast, the builder who supposedly built my house is unnamed and untraceable.
There’s Something Wrong With This Central Heating
According to my air conditioning the temperature outside is 11°C. I have the central heating set to 18°C downstairs and switched off upstairs. But the floor is distinctly warm although my thermometer shows 23°C and 47% humidity. The latter figure agrees with the aircon.
So it looks like the aircon and the underfloor central heating are fighting against each other. Luckily the aircon seems to be winning, as that is set to 23°C.
It surely doesn’t all add up!
This House Has Form
I’ve said that this house is trying to kill me, by boiling me up. Look what the builders found in the back of a cupboard in the bathroom.
This House Has Form
So I wasn’t its first victim.
My House Is Trying To Kill Me!
It’s cold here and I put the heating on. Unfortunately, the heating system has a mind of its own and doesn’t seem to have any idea about how to control to a reasonable temperature.
- Sometimes if it’s been off for a few hours, the floors are icy cold and take another few hours to show any heat.
- Often the boiler doesn’t start on the timer and I have to switch it on and off a couple of times to get it going.
- Today, it has been showing another of its traits and is just pumping more and more heat into the floor, without any regard for my comfort. A few hours ago, the temperature was 27 degrees, with the heating turned off and the windows wide open.
At least the air-conditioning has got it down now to 25 degrees.
The plumber came round and they felt something must be jammed. As the builder is coming tomorrow to gut my bathroom, they’ll be back then to find the fault, hopefully.
The builder is starting the deJerrification of this house. Hopefully, they’ll finish it before the house puts me in hospital again. Or even worse!
I Want Several Of These!
I need some grab rails in my shower. Just look at this.
Grab-Rail On A New Bus for London
It is absolutely ideal and the texture is great. Although I might prefer a different colour. I could also use them on the side of this stair-case.
My Staircase
Are they a standard item or are they made specially for the bus?
If they’re the latter, they could be sold as souvenirs in the London Transport Museum.
The Self-Filling Bath
I am refitting my bathroom in the next few weeks, as the current bath is one of Gerry’s El Cheapo specials, which is actually dangerous to get in and out of. It also has taps that work on a hot-one way, cold the other basis. There’s a video here.
I’m fitting a whirlpool bath and whilst talking to the saleslady, I thought it would be nice to have an self-filling option. I was told she’d never seen one. On the other hand you can get taps that set the temperature.
I searched the Internet and haven’t found a system.
I wonder why not! It’s a dream for a farmer, a builder or someone who works outside in the cold, wet and filth. Imagine you’re just coming to the end of a hard working day and are walking home or just about to get in your vehicle to drive there. You bring up an app on your smart phone or send a text from your Nokia 6310i to tell the bath to get itself ready in fifteen minutes say. It then fills itself to your required level and temperature, a couple of minutes before you get home.
The logic for the self filling bath is overwhelming. Even in my situation here, I would love to be able to set it off and then perhaps finish a post on my blog or a bit of cooking, whilst it was filling. After all,most of us just hang around in the bathroom, whilst waiting for the water to get to the required level and temperature.
It’s not that the technology is at all difficult. In my view, you wouldn’t actually measure the depth of water directly, but probably by weighing the bath with a simple load cell.
It’s just straightforward automation, that’s been around for years.
What I can’t understand, is why it is not commonplace? But then there are other simple pieces of automation that aren’t either.
How To Fit A Toilet
I’m thinking about using a Geberit Monolith toilet in my house.
My builder and I liked the video about installation.
But you don’t buy a toilet because of the video! On the other hand, you might, if you were installing it yourself.
The Anonymous Widower 