Advice for oil-fired newbie

SpiderD · Jun 9, 2012

Hi

This is going to sound really stupid....

I've bought a new build house with a Firebird Combi C. I haven't actually moved in yet, so all I have is the Enviromax manual, which seems to be about 99.9% technical detail with very little in the way of operating instructions.
It has a dual timer, and if I'm reading the manual correctly, you have to have the timer set up to turn the boiler on before you can get hot water? I'm used to a gas combi where you can get hot water at any time, so it seems a bit odd that this boiler can't do this.
It looks like you can set it up to run continuously (no timer program) but does this burn more oil even when there's no actual demand on the system?
Also, what's that High Limit green light? Is that OK? Does it go out or change colour if there's a fault?
Where is the reset button?
Some of this will probably become obvious when I can get my hands on the boiler, but I've got enough on my plate what with selling current house etc without obsessing about a boiler!
All help and advice appreciated
Thanks

alexmurchison · Jun 9, 2012

depending on make / model of programmer then its multi functional, ie on or off or timed etc. it works the same way in how a gas boiler would work, apart from some oil boilers having a small water storage unit built in. It depends on your usage as to how you set it up. If constant use throughout the day set it to the continous on position and the boiler will maintain the stored water to set temp. If you only want water say for a wash in the morning then say a shower and washing up in the evening set the timer the same way you would for heating to come on half hour before demand to maintian stored heat. Its built in flow switch detects the water flow and thus heats on demand. The high limit light is there to give you an indication that the boiler has "overheated" to which the light would illuminate and usually lock the boiler out until it is reset. The reset button is usually under / behind facia panel. either red or black

kimbo · Jun 14, 2012

All the info you want will be in the manual, alex was right about the boiler timings. This boiler has a hot water store so when the boiler hot water is on constant the store is heated up and goes off on its thermostat when it reaches temperature, it will only come on again when there is a demand or when the store temp drops, it uses very little oil when maintaining its temperature and it hardly comes on much due to the good insulation. These work on thermistors that detect a drop in temperature when the hot tap is opened and this fires the boiler up when the temp in the store drops. The dual timer on the boiler is factory fitted and it is of the mechanical type which give little trouble.

SpiderD · Jun 23, 2012

Thanks guys. One other thing - I was down there last week for a flying visit and noticed that the plume from the boiler tends to hang around the flue (it's in the wind shadow of the house) and since the flue is at waist level you have walk through the plume every time you go down the garden path. Is it permissible/possible to have the flue extended upwards to clear the roofline? It's a single storey add-on, so 5 feet or so would do the job.