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no hot water, central heating works fine

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fm1979

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Hi,

I'm new to this forum, please apologies if this is not posted in the right section, or an answer exists already somewhere.

I have this issue: no hot water in any tap in the house, but the central heating works fine. The boiler is a Vaillant system 15.
A gas engineer had a diagnosis and said the boiler is okay and that it's could be a diverter valve issue. Or a thermostat.
We've been having no hot water for a week now and the engineer cannot come to fix it before end of next week.
  • does the cause of the problem sound ok to you?
  • is it really not possible for an engineer to come and repair faster than this? I understand he may be streched, but don't they allow spots for emergency appointments and repairs?

Thanks all for your time.
 
The chances are you have a problem somewhere between the programmer and the motorised valve, so yes the engineers choice of words are correct.
Depending on the type of work that engineer does its entirely possible they don't have the parts as van stock and would need to source them. That being said all the parts this fault could be are readily available at the local merchants.
A week without hot water is unacceptable though, have you not even used the immersion heater?
I would try and find someone else.
 
SJB060685 said:
The chances are you have a problem somewhere between the programmer and the motorised valve, so yes the engineers choice of words are correct.
Depending on the type of work that engineer does its entirely possible they don't have the parts as van stock and would need to source them. That being said all the parts this fault could be are readily available at the local merchants.
A week without hot water is unacceptable though, have you not even used the immersion heater?
I would try and find someone else.
Click to expand...
sorry that sounds gibberish to me: what is the immersion heater?
Sorry I'm very bad at plumbing, and my English is not better
 
You should have an immersion heater as back up for hot water in the event of a boiler fault. Take a picture of your cylinder please and if you do have an immersion heater one of us can point it out to you and tell you which switch to turn on.
 
SJB060685 said:
You should have an immersion heater as back up for hot water in the event of a boiler fault. Take a picture of your cylinder please and if you do have an immersion heater one of us can point it out to you and tell you which switch to turn on.
Click to expand...
Is that this?
 

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This is the immersion heater and you can see there is no cable going to it.
 

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The white box above is is the cylinder thermostat to control the boiler and could be part of the problem. You need to find an engineer who is G3 registered as mentioned above because if the fault lies at the cylinder then they would need that qualification.
As to why the installer didn't wire up the immersion heater is anyone's guess but it should have been done.
I can't stress this enough, you have been without hot water for a week, you need to find someone which the right credentials and who's going to treat this as an urgent call out. It is completely unacceptable to leave someone without hot water for this long.
 
SJB060685 said:
The white box above is is the cylinder thermostat to control the boiler and could be part of the problem. You need to find an engineer who is G3 registered as mentioned above because if the fault lies at the cylinder then they would need that qualification.
As to why the installer didn't wire up the immersion heater is anyone's guess but it should have been done.
I can't stress this enough, you have been without hot water for a week, you need to find someone which the right credentials and who's going to treat this as an urgent call out. It is completely unacceptable to leave someone without hot water for this long.
Click to expand...
Hi SJB060685,
Manu thanks for your kind answer. This really educates me. (I still need to do some homework too to learn more!)
This is a new built home, I'll contact the developer to see if there is something they can do (we unfortunately passed their 2-year warranty). We'll see.
Regarding the registered engineer, I'll try to find someone else (I guess I don't go to the right websites). I however booked my guy for next Friday, is that bad if I cancel him if I find someone else?
 
If you politely explain to the guy you have already booked for next Friday that by then you would have been without hot water for around two weeks and is it possible if they could attend sooner. If they say no then inform them you will see if you can get someone sooner. He/she may not like this but as I said before it is completely unacceptable to be left without hot water for that long. I can tell you now that if you were a customer of mine, under the circumstances you would have been treated as an urgent call.
You can go on the Gas Safe website and search for technicians in your area that hold both gas and G3 qualifications.
 
fm1979 said:
I however booked my guy for next Friday, is that bad if I cancel him if I find someone else?
Click to expand...
No, if he’s not G3 registered he’ll understand and be grateful you haven’t wasted his time, and you could avoid an unnecessary Callout charge. Just because he’s gas safe registered, doesn’t mean he’s G3 registered.
 
SJB060685 said:
If you politely explain to the guy you have already booked for next Friday that by then you would have been without hot water for around two weeks and is it possible if they could attend sooner. If they say no then inform them you will see if you can get someone sooner. He/she may not like this but as I said before it is completely unacceptable to be left without hot water for that long. I can tell you now that if you were a customer of mine, under the circumstances you would have been treated as an urgent call.
You can go on the Gas Safe website and search for technicians in your area that hold both gas and G3 qualifications.
Click to expand...
Many thanks, will do. Awkward conversation in perspective...He was not shy to come for the diagnosis the same late evening and charge me 70£ and no clear cut diagnosis. Anyway....it's done it's done.
I've been to my local gym club to shower, I'm fortunate to still be a member, I actually wanted to cancel haha.

You've been super helpful.
 
Hi, just wanted to give an update. I called another gas engineer who initially did a temporary fix to give us hot water, and 2 days later came to replace a diverter valve. Thanks for the forum's help.

Now another question: there is one shower in my home which is always a bit weird: sometimes, (even after the above problem was sorted) there is no hot water when I have a shower. So what I do is: I open the tap in the sink just beside it, and that seems to force the hot water to come from the shower. Looks like the other bathroom/shower is fine. Is it a shower problem?
 
I would say so
 
fm1979 said:
Hi,

I'm new to this forum, please apologies if this is not posted in the right section, or an answer exists already somewhere.

I have this issue: no hot water in any tap in the house, but the central heating works fine. The boiler is a Vaillant system 15.
A gas engineer had a diagnosis and said the boiler is okay and that it's could be a diverter valve issue. Or a thermostat.
We've been having no hot water for a week now and the engineer cannot come to fix it before end of next week.
  • does the cause of the problem sound ok to you?
  • is it really not possible for an engineer to come and repair faster than this? I understand he may be streched, but don't they allow spots for emergency appointments and repairs?

Thanks all for your time.
Click to expand...
Do you have an unvented cylinder? Temperature setting? Has the overheat acted?....reset. Is the Valve opening?
 

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