Pump for gravity few boiler

[SilverShadow]

Hey all,

 

Another day, another question - hopefully a nice easy one to ease into the weekend..... 😁

 

We've just recently moved into a new home, and noticed the central heating comes on whenever we want to heat the water via a gas boiler. Reading up on this it's pretty standard for gravity fed heating systems to do this. I've also read that installing a pump to the system will allow independent control of hot water & CH - very handy thing to have in this weather! 🥵

 

Looking at the boiler below, i'm pretty sure it's gravity fed (4 pipes in/out are a giveaway apparently?). However, am i right in thinking this system already has a pump attached to allow independent control? If so then perhaps it's the control panel that needs updating (a very old Horstmann Centaur44 🕸️), as this seems to only allow us to set hot water & CH combined

 

My questions for you great guys are:

 

1 - can you tell from the pics if this seems to be gravity fed?

2 - if so, isn't that the required pump shown below to allow independent control?

3 - would getting a new control panel & pump (if not working) perhaps be the easiest way to achieve independent control?

 

We will in time replace the antiquated system, once funds are a little more flowing and other jobs taken care of. Right now it's a shoestring budget approach to improving how it currently works. We will ofc get a qualified plumber out to look, but thought it good to be armed with some knowledge up front so we don't appear to be the duffers we really are! 😅

 

Many thanks for your time & help with this

Shadow

[ProDave]

Gravity HW usually has the tank right above the boiler, and when heating HW it is just convection that makes the water flow, and the pump only comes on ti circulate hot water for central heating.  If the pump is coming on now, look at why might be an electrical or controls problem?

 

The big disadvantage of this system is you can't control the temperature of the hot water other than by adjusting the boiler flow temperature, and you can't have heating on without hot water.