Good day everyone,
I'm coming to this forum in the hope that the collective minds can help me. The story is long, depressing and complex so I'll try to condense the issues for you all, and hopefully you can steer me in the right direction. Thanks in advance for reading the below tale...
We moved into this lovely old house in June this year, in the midst of the summer heat. I noticed the heated towel rails were on, ALL THE TIME! Cue much bedtime sweating, and not the pleasant kind either. 🙂 Anyhow, we had hot water, and we had warm fluffy towels. Life was good.
Being the inquistive type I had a look in the room that houses the boiler and UFH manifold and promptly stood there gawping at the sight of it. VERY complex.. To me anyway. As the days passed we realised that the only way of having hot water was to use the immersion. A local plumber was called and he replaced a Honeywell 2 port valve head, a hot water pump, and did some other stuff which I didn't see, and my wife didn't understand... We had hot water from the boiler now!
Weeks went by and I noticed that one part of the UFH in the kitchen was stone cold. Other part was almost too hot to walk on! The floor is tiled. Upstairs, there is a second manifold, and this didn't appear to do anything at all, DEAD. As a dead thing. No pump, no lights on the wiring centre, nothing. Hmmm.
2 (more) plumbers have been, and neither has fixed it. One came and never even billed us, and now won't return my calls. He must be scared of the system for some reason. I wonder why?
Fast forward to this week.
Boiler now blowing the 3A fuse on a regualar basis. Nothing has changed! So I kept flinging 3A fuses in it, almost every day. Now running on a 5A fuse and is perfectly happy again. How odd?! Anyhow, the gas supplier includes boiler cover on the tarriff we pay. So I called out.
Engineer takes a cursory look at the boiler, declares it fit, points accusatory finger at the UFH system "WE DON'T TOUCH THAT! IT MUST BE CAUSING THE ISSUE. GOODBYE!".. Now, he didn't even check the fuse on the wall outlet. How do I know this? Because I had to put a manky looking old fuse in there that tested fine, but had been in my odds and ends jar for YEARS and was filthy on the ceramic section. Aforementioned "engineer" was asked "so what rating of fuse should be in there?". "3 amps mate. I only got the fuse to blow when the UFH was turned on...". No. No you didn't. The manky looking fuse is still in there and is fine. You never changed it.
I discovered the issue with the cold cold zone was flow related, so have fixed that, it is lovely and warm in both areas of that zone now. I dropped the heat down to the recommended 45C too, so we can walk about on the floor without making "oooh, oooh, ahhh, oh, ooooh" noises like we are crossing hot sand barefoot. Hurrah. Fuse in the boiler is still fine. Fuse in the Polypipe wiring centre was the wrong rating. Put a brand new 5A glass fuse in there. Brushed out the remains of the exploded fuses from the previous plumbers visits too.... So downstairs now seems to work fine.
Moving on to upstairs. Start with the easy stuff right? Previous plumber had replaced a fuse in the Polypipe wiring centre upstairs and managed to blow the fuse in the upstairs Polypipe WC (Wiring Centre), the downstairs WC and the boiler 240v outlet... Not good. He ran away and never came back. I fitted a 5A glass fuse in the WC, turned all the zone thermostats to "off", and pushed the fuse holder home.... Safety squint enabled. No drama. No bang. No burning smells. A green power light was lit. Did a little success dance. BLOODY HELL!
OK. Feeling brave I then enabled one zone. Pump on, valve energised. Boiler running. Red lights on in the WC and in the zone controller. WHOO HOO! Motorised valve head opening... Hot water out of the manifold. Crikey. Enabled another zone via the 'stat. Was greeted with an LED on the polypipe zone centre, and another pipe getting warm as it snakes out of sight under the floor. The third and final zone. The reason for this long and convuluted post. Thermostat switched on. SILENCE. Bugger. Upstairs WC fuse blown. Boiler fuse blown. Arse. Disable the 'stat. Replace fuses. All good.
So, what would be blowing the fuses when that 'stat is powered up?
I replaced the WC fuse and have the 2 zones working fine. Assume it is the Polypipe motorised zone valve. I could take a known good motorised valve and swap it I guess? I have lots and lots of fuses....
If anyone knows a plumber or spark, or those ethereal beings that seem able to do both, that wants to fix this final issue for me then put him in touch. I'm in Newbury, and my skills are now being challenged.
I'm coming to this forum in the hope that the collective minds can help me. The story is long, depressing and complex so I'll try to condense the issues for you all, and hopefully you can steer me in the right direction. Thanks in advance for reading the below tale...
We moved into this lovely old house in June this year, in the midst of the summer heat. I noticed the heated towel rails were on, ALL THE TIME! Cue much bedtime sweating, and not the pleasant kind either. 🙂 Anyhow, we had hot water, and we had warm fluffy towels. Life was good.
Being the inquistive type I had a look in the room that houses the boiler and UFH manifold and promptly stood there gawping at the sight of it. VERY complex.. To me anyway. As the days passed we realised that the only way of having hot water was to use the immersion. A local plumber was called and he replaced a Honeywell 2 port valve head, a hot water pump, and did some other stuff which I didn't see, and my wife didn't understand... We had hot water from the boiler now!
Weeks went by and I noticed that one part of the UFH in the kitchen was stone cold. Other part was almost too hot to walk on! The floor is tiled. Upstairs, there is a second manifold, and this didn't appear to do anything at all, DEAD. As a dead thing. No pump, no lights on the wiring centre, nothing. Hmmm.
2 (more) plumbers have been, and neither has fixed it. One came and never even billed us, and now won't return my calls. He must be scared of the system for some reason. I wonder why?
Fast forward to this week.
Boiler now blowing the 3A fuse on a regualar basis. Nothing has changed! So I kept flinging 3A fuses in it, almost every day. Now running on a 5A fuse and is perfectly happy again. How odd?! Anyhow, the gas supplier includes boiler cover on the tarriff we pay. So I called out.
Engineer takes a cursory look at the boiler, declares it fit, points accusatory finger at the UFH system "WE DON'T TOUCH THAT! IT MUST BE CAUSING THE ISSUE. GOODBYE!".. Now, he didn't even check the fuse on the wall outlet. How do I know this? Because I had to put a manky looking old fuse in there that tested fine, but had been in my odds and ends jar for YEARS and was filthy on the ceramic section. Aforementioned "engineer" was asked "so what rating of fuse should be in there?". "3 amps mate. I only got the fuse to blow when the UFH was turned on...". No. No you didn't. The manky looking fuse is still in there and is fine. You never changed it.
I discovered the issue with the cold cold zone was flow related, so have fixed that, it is lovely and warm in both areas of that zone now. I dropped the heat down to the recommended 45C too, so we can walk about on the floor without making "oooh, oooh, ahhh, oh, ooooh" noises like we are crossing hot sand barefoot. Hurrah. Fuse in the boiler is still fine. Fuse in the Polypipe wiring centre was the wrong rating. Put a brand new 5A glass fuse in there. Brushed out the remains of the exploded fuses from the previous plumbers visits too.... So downstairs now seems to work fine.
Moving on to upstairs. Start with the easy stuff right? Previous plumber had replaced a fuse in the Polypipe wiring centre upstairs and managed to blow the fuse in the upstairs Polypipe WC (Wiring Centre), the downstairs WC and the boiler 240v outlet... Not good. He ran away and never came back. I fitted a 5A glass fuse in the WC, turned all the zone thermostats to "off", and pushed the fuse holder home.... Safety squint enabled. No drama. No bang. No burning smells. A green power light was lit. Did a little success dance. BLOODY HELL!
OK. Feeling brave I then enabled one zone. Pump on, valve energised. Boiler running. Red lights on in the WC and in the zone controller. WHOO HOO! Motorised valve head opening... Hot water out of the manifold. Crikey. Enabled another zone via the 'stat. Was greeted with an LED on the polypipe zone centre, and another pipe getting warm as it snakes out of sight under the floor. The third and final zone. The reason for this long and convuluted post. Thermostat switched on. SILENCE. Bugger. Upstairs WC fuse blown. Boiler fuse blown. Arse. Disable the 'stat. Replace fuses. All good.
So, what would be blowing the fuses when that 'stat is powered up?
I replaced the WC fuse and have the 2 zones working fine. Assume it is the Polypipe motorised zone valve. I could take a known good motorised valve and swap it I guess? I have lots and lots of fuses....
If anyone knows a plumber or spark, or those ethereal beings that seem able to do both, that wants to fix this final issue for me then put him in touch. I'm in Newbury, and my skills are now being challenged.
