hot water cylinder thermostat

[italiancat]

In a bid to cut down on my bills I turned down the thermostat on the hot water cylinder down to 50 degrees from 58 degrees. After I did this the central heating would not switch on even though the temperature in the rooms downstairs was only 13 degrees and the system thermometer control was set to 28 degrees,[my heating is set to always on position and rad valves to approx 3-3.5 and system thermostat to 28] as soon as I turned the cylinder thermostat up the heating kicked in and came on again. I would have expected my heating to still work even if water had reached 50 degrees but all rads were stone cold and boiler didnt fire up even when I turned rad valves up to 5. Is this right ? I'm not sure how these systems work.

[stanleyman]

You should have a programmer with two seperate channels for heating and hot water. Either channel when switched on will independantly activate via the thermostats the motorised valve/s to open the boiler flow to the required demand and then switch on the pump and boiler.

The heating should operate independently of the hot water control unless an activating syncronmotor has failed leaving a valve open or the wiring is incorrect.

You probably need a heating control specialist, where are you in the country?

[italiancat]

thanks for answer, I'm near Blackburn in Lancashire.

[stanleyman]

Too far for me I'm afraid.

[pilotlight]

italiancat, Reading your detailed explanation of the problem, I think that you may have a fully pumped "y" plan system. This is a system that has a mid position valve some where on the system that will send the heated water from the boiler to either the cylinder , or the heating system ( both at the same time,if both are calling for heat ).An electrical/control fault has occured on the heating side, resulting in heating only being provided when you are asking for hot water, i.e. the cylinder stat at a reasonably high setting ( 60 deg. ).

Of course , I could be way off the mark assuming this, but this is one of the things your heating engineer will check out, because, as stanley man says, you will probably need the services of a competant heating engineer who is fully conversant with all types of controls.

Good luck.

[italiancat]

Thanks to pilotlight and stanleyman for your answers, I will have to get an engineer round to have a look, at least I know now that I am not doing anything wrong as it seems I have fault, thinking about it, what you both say seems to make sense as in the summer I can't have water on without it putting it to the rads as well so it kind of falls into place now that there is a problem with either a valve or the wiring. Thanks again.