My underfloor heating

[PeterW]

9 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

Also a miracle that I know how to work them now! 

 

Was that the lesson from Little Willy..??!

[newhome]

4 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

Was that the lesson from Little Willy..??!

 

That bit yes but the home, away, summer, temp hold, holiday stuff etc learnt by trial and error and fiddling round with the settings. That touchscreen thing is pretty good TBH. Saves wandering round having to check and set 14 zones separately, and for seeing what the temp is like across the whole house. The newer installations will all be controlled by an app of course but that’s like the Mach 1 version of an app in a wall box lol. Just need to work out how to change the battery now before I switch the heating back on. 

 

 

[Ferdinand]

On 17/09/2018 at 14:51, lizzie said:

 

may take me a while to work through it all and come back with results.

 

 

Do not worry .. took me a couple of weeks to do it all.

 

Go down the offie half way through.

 

Unfortunately this excellently named place is in Sunderland. It is like a boozed up version of Open All Hours.

 

I love Fatso's Cafe next door. If they put one of those in London the Mayor would try to ban it for the implicit suggestion that fat people eat more sausages.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2018 by Ferdinand

[lizzie]

@Nickfromwales and @PeterW and @newhomeI have spent a good part of last evening and all day today testing the system per instructions........... down to off then on one by one up to to 35 degrees and only one on at any one time with a cool down in between.....I am dizzy in more ways than one!

 

TRV set at 40 on both manifolds.

 

Upshot is the whole things seems mad.  I have established which zone is which on the manifolds (my hand done scribbles attached) BUT and this is the very confusing thing the manifold that has a zone switched on is cold, cold pipes, cold pump and no change to stat/temp in house in that zone, lights on heatmiser hub show power on, boiler on, valve on but nothing is happening other than actuators are up and corresponding little red things have an almost imperceptible jiggle, so slight you really have to look to see it. However the other manifold (no zones on) is boiling hot, no lights on the heatmiser other than power light, no pump on, no anything other than very hot pipes and boiler going full pelt (temp to heating on boiler display over 70 ) ...in fact boiler got so hot at one stage it shut down for a while.

 

I thought it must be a problem with one manifold but no it happens with both of them. One manifold is in plant room the other is in my bedroom so a good distance apart.

 

On the manifold where a zone is calling for heat the two little dials - flow and return - are the same.  On the other manifold where no heat is being called for but its hot as hades there is a differential between flow and return.  

 

This happened with every individual zone on both manifolds.

 

  The app and stats all seem to be working on the face of it but they are clearly not and I have no heat anywhere at all.  The house temps are reading 25 but thats because its very warm and humid here today with storm going on.  The house temps have not changed by more than half a degree since yesterday no matter what I have done with the UFH.

 

Definitely very confused.com now

 

Thank you all for any advice and your contributions so far.

 

 

ufhzones1.pdf

[Triassic]

Is it air locked, is the automatic air vent operating. It’s the silver thing next to the gauge. Loosen the little knurled valve at the top.

 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2018 by Triassic

[lizzie]

Just now, Triassic said:

Is it air locked, is the automatic air vent operating. It’s thvsiver thing next to the gauge.

 

 

 

The vent is open I have not felt any air coming out of it though, I have been checking them periodically.

[Triassic]

Have you tried speeding up The pump, it looks like it’s on the lowest setting!

[PeterW]

@lizzie I don't think those pumps have been commissioned properly - have a look at this 

 

[ProDave]

Is the pump running? there is a pump on each manifold, can you hear them running?  There is also another pump in the pland room is that running?

 

There are 2 motorised valves in the plant room. Try manually opening them with the little lever that sticks out.

[lizzie]

@PeterW and @ProDave  and @Triassicthank you!

 

I have reset pumps to maximum per the video and set both motorised valves to manual open (they were on auto)  and a miracle has occurred......put one zone on for each manifold and now have hot pipes in both and can hear pumps running, Not had that before so looks like we are getting sorted. Will let it run for an hour and see if we start melting.

 

The motorised valves were really tricky, very stiff, do you think they might need replacing?

Edited September 19, 2018 by lizzie

[Triassic]

36 minutes ago, lizzie said:

The motorised valves were really tricky, very stiff, do you think they might need replacing?

They should be OK once they’ve opened and closed a few times. They are stiff when manually opening them, your pushing against some tight seals and a return spring.

[lizzie]

Just now, Triassic said:

They should be OK once they’ve opened and closed a few times. They are stiff when manually opening them, your pushing against some tight seals and a return spring.

Thank you - should I put back to auto at some point then?

[Triassic]

Just now, lizzie said:

Thank you - should I put back to auto at some point then?

Yes, and you should turn the pumps down one notch and see what affect that has.

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, Triassic said:

Yes, and you should turn the pumps down one notch and see what affect that has.

 

Once you have got the water warm round the system, then you need to come to a happy balance between how fast the water is pumped, and the flow (in) and return (out) temperatures.

 

Compared to rads you want the system to be running for relatively long periods with lowish flow and return temps. I think my pump is on "2" out of 3 settings, and my temperatures are roughly 40 and a bit in and 30 out, with the heating on the timer for about half of the day when on. 

 

If I need more heat I tend to tweak the temperature on the boiler for a bit, or use the manual 'on' on the main control for a couple of hours, rather than messing about with the 7 day controller, or just use an electric rad for an hour. 

 

If too hot I just whack it off for part of the day.

 

But here, there is someone in most of the time.

 

Add: my house is nothing like at well insulated as Jeremy’s.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited September 19, 2018 by Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

For reference with a pretty well insulated house, I run our pump on it's lowest setting and have the temperature set so that it's around 25 to 26 deg flow and around 21 deg return.  In really cold weather the UFH may be on for around 2 hours a day, but in normal winter weather it's on for maybe an hour or so every other day.

[lizzie]

Wow clearly mine is very high then.  

 

I have managed to put the motorised valves back to auto but this has caused  manifolds to revert to no heat and the little red things have dropped very low on manifold 2 as has the return temp on the flow and return meters.  I'm thinking I may have a faulty motorised valve?  The one marked 2 was the most difficult to move, the little lever was all bent and it took a huge effort to get it shifted both ways.

[lizzie]

25 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

But here, there is someone in most of the time.

 

I'm here all day too I work at home.

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, lizzie said:

Wow clearly mine is very high then.  

 

I have managed to put the motorised valves back to auto but this has caused  manifolds to revert to no heat and the little red things have dropped very low on manifold 2 as has the return temp on the flow and return meters.  I'm thinking I may have a faulty motorised valve?  The one marked 2 was the most difficult to move, the little lever was all bent and it took a huge effort to get it shifted both ways.

Its a wiring issue. Its simply not been wired up correctly, as if it had the motorised valves would be opening and allowing flow through. Theyre not, eg its not operating correctly. 

Get this nugget back to site in the next few days or get someone else and bill him. 

[lizzie]

5 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Its a wiring issue. Its simply not been wired up correctly, as if it had the motorised valves would be opening and allowing flow through. Theyre not, eg its not operating correctly. 

Get this nugget back to site in the next few days or get someone else and bill him. 

Thank you @Nickfromwaleselectrician not plumber by the sound of it then..... will try and get them both back or a new one I am at wits end with it. Really appreciate all the help thank you.

[Nickfromwales]

God, its even worse if the plumber hasn't wired it  I make a lot of money wiring up systems for my mates ( gas safe plumbers ) who can just about wire a plug  

If the sparky has been left with this task then I feel sorry for him tbh. If he wants to ring me I can talk him through it. 

[lizzie]

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

God, its even worse if the plumber hasn't wired it  I make a lot of money wiring up systems for my mates ( gas safe plumbers ) who can just about wire a plug  

If the sparky has been left with this task then I feel sorry for him tbh. If he wants to ring me I can talk him through it. 

I'll find out!   Are we talking wiring whole heatmiser system or just motorised valves please.

Edited September 19, 2018 by lizzie

[newhome]

8 hours ago, lizzie said:

Thank you @Nickfromwaleselectrician not plumber by the sound of it then..... will try and get them both back or a new one I am at wits end with it. Really appreciate all the help thank you.

 

Did the plumber arrange the electrician or was it the one that put the “dog rough” (@Onoff‘s words)  socket right behind the plumbing under your sink? Sounds like it’s going to be a “his fault, not mine” affair but the plumber should have checked it all. Assume it wasn’t the under the sinkgate plumber who did the UFH? 

 

[lizzie]

2 hours ago, newhome said:

 

Did the plumber arrange the electrician or was it the one that put the “dog rough” (@Onoff‘s words)  socket right behind the plumbing under your sink? Sounds like it’s going to be a “his fault, not mine” affair but the plumber should have checked it all. Assume it wasn’t the under the sinkgate plumber who did the UFH? 

 

Only had the one electrician and he did everything..........sounds like the blame game will start next...

 

[PeterW]

What concerns me here is that it “was” working so anyone who’s played with stuff may have altered the wiring.

 

Who wired it up ?

 

the pump btw can go back to auto - it would have modulated down to low as there was no flow and the back pressure was high. 

[ProDave]

4 minutes ago, lizzie said:

Only had the one electrician and he did everything..........sounds like the blame game will start next...

 

Unless I missed a bit, you can't start the blame game until you find out was that valve wired wrong, or has it just failied?  All we know at the moment it it is not working, but I thought it was working last year?