Restoration is easy.

[Joe]

I found in general that you get better service from local tradesmen who need the work rather than big firms where different departments don't talk to each other properly and the staff get paid the same no matter how good or bad a job they do.

I certainly agree with the need for back-up heating and an electric blanket.

- Joe

[pwdrive]

Poor old Col, if you don't like rain in the winter then whatever you do don't move down to Cornwall, we get the worst of it here straight off the Atlantic, I have never known it so bad as these last 12 months or so. I am supposed to be building our extension in a few weeks and I need dry weather as it's timber framed.
Never had a gas boiler but I know friends that have and the general consensus is that the new ones are more prone to problems as there is more to go wrong with them.
I did fit an oil boiler when we had the barn, some of them were silly money, I found a new one on the web from a firm in Plymouth, it cost just over £400 had one pipe in, one pipe out, a fuel feed pipe an on/off switch and a 13 amp plug, it was barely 16" square by 3 ft high and built like a brick khasi...Ideal.
Went down the woods again today to get some more firewood as the Landrover is going to the garage in a couple of days for MOT and any repairs needed and I have no idea how long it's going to be off the road, got just over 4 weeks of firewood cut, split and stacked so it should be enough, some sections of the tracks in the woods are getting very bad now, mud and water everywhere...Ah well.

Lawrence.

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks Gary; I'm now upgraded from depressed back to just miserable. All our dealings with British Gas have been brilliant. I rang BG this morning and the engineer has just left after fixing the boiler. The fault was the diverter valve at £100. The engineer has been here about an hour so my decision to go for the £99 fixed price repair together with insurance was a good one otherwise I would have had to pay £199 for this one repair alone so in effect this call out has been free of charge because the diverter valve would have cost me £100 and had I attempted the repair myself how long would I have played around and possibly bought other items until correcting the problem?

My personal cloud joined in; black as a boot and whilst I was taking the engineer a pot of tea from the kitchen into the garage boy down came hailstones and torrential rain all driven by high wind; I had to put my hand over the pot to prevent the hailstones turning the tea cold; I got a good soaking so thank you cloud you have excelled yourself; I've put the soaking wet car away before I explode.

Enough is enough and tomorrow I'm taking Bron over to Boundary Mills in Colne; the snow tyres are on the car the snow chains are under the drivers seat; now I'm good and mad!!

We've plenty of back up heating Gary but its in the garage or stored under the bungalow; oil filled electric radiator; electric convector heaters and a couple of fan heaters but as Bron was warm with the gas fire in the front room I couldn't be bothered getting a soaking going into the garage; if the repair could not be carried out for days then of course I would have sorted back up heating.

We've had an electric blanket for many years Gary and for safety we change it every five years or so because at around £35 each they are cheap. I keep having a look at the woodworking books you kindly gave me Gary and I'm still reading the router book which is bristling with good ideas and tips; I'll eventually get to the wood bending book which too is most interesting.

British Gas possibly aren't the cheapest but Bron and I are delighted with their service; within a few hours they have been and fixed the problem; we can ignore the fixed price call out charge because the part supplied covered this the only extra cost being the insurance contract but this ensures peace of mind; at least in future if anything goes wrong a phone call will sort it with no further costs being incurred by us.

You make a lot of sense Joe and I can see how a local trades-person would like to do a good job because after all they make most of their living by word of mouth recommendation. We seldom resort to trades-people though because I tend to cover all repairs/alterations to our home but when it comes to something like a central heating boiler these tend to go down in sub zero temperatures placing a great deal of demand on the repairers; a company like British Gas has many engineers whereas a local trades-person might be on his own so is unable to respond quickly?

Later in the week when I settle down I'll resume work on the cabinet in fact whilst I've been waiting for BG I've been putting the story together to add to the forum.

Down but not out Gary; I'm determined not to let this dire weather get the better of me; once again I'm sitting at the computer having removed my winter clothing so life is looking much better.

Kind regards, Col.

[Radio Fixer]

Good you are up and running again Colin ... let the therms flow and stuff the greens!

Yeah! diverter valves, good when they work but. Got rid of all mine and have hot water on good old gravity and heating straight on the pump. So simple and I love it.

But times change and I'm on the Mark, 'heating all the time mode'. This means the gravity doesnt do much as I leave the immersion on 24/7 as the boiler water supply temp has been turned down. Turn the room stat down to 16 or 17 at night and then up it for day time. Must say this 'not stop / start away from the lights' style of heating is sooo comfortable. Get up in the night, for what ever and its pleasant. The old radios tell me they are loving it as well.

Whats the extra cost? well I have the accountants working on it full time and will let you know. Typical of the breed they are being cautious

Gary

[Radio Fixer]

I imagine they changed the controller on top of the diverter valve Colin. Not much used to go wrong with the 3 port valve: 1 in and 2 out with a paddle that closes one of the outs at a time. One feeds boiler water to the rads and normally has priority, the other when the room stat goes 'off', allows hot water to flow to the cylinder coil.

After many years, the ones I used, developed leaks around the spindle to the paddle, where it exited the valve body to mechanically engage with the shaft from the controller sitting on top. When this happens it’s a pain as I used to drain most of the system and then have to get the air out after refill. Unlike pumps they never used to be fitted with isolating valves although this may be a modern requirement.

The controller was a synchronous motor, with mechanical means of always ensuring it started in the right direction. From the motor was a gear box that dropped the speed to a crawl but upped the torque to do the job. Inside there was a cam that opened micro switches, and cut the power to the motor, when it had got the valve paddle in the right position to open the particular port.

So the valve would be left with one micro switch open and the other closed, this would be the one to get power applied to it next, via the programmer (a big name for a largely simple box) and the room and cylinder stats.

The common fault is the micro switches, which in the models I fixed, were tiny things. I got some and used to change them and put the controller back for several more years of use (well hopefully )

Gary

[Yorkie]

Gary’s description of how the diverter valve works is spot on, as is his statement that as often as not, the valve itself isn’t faulty, but the fault is in the actuator.

The valve is simply a little hard rubber ball about 22mm diameter which - in a three post valve - is biased in one direction by the spring return on the actuator when at rest. Most systems are wired to give ‘hot water priority’, that is that when starting from cold, the valve will send hot water from the boiler to the hot water cylinder heating coil only, then when the cylinder is up to temperature, the cylinder thermostat puts voltage onto the diverter valve motor to switch to heating, and provided the programmer and room thermostat (often now in one combined wireless unit) are calling for heat, the little synchronous motor of the diverter valve move the lever on the valve which operates the rubber ball across to the heating position, blocking off the hot water port. The synchronous motor stalls in that position until voltage is removed from the motor, at which point the spring returns the ball to open the hot water port.

As Gary says, there arev two micro-siwtches in the valve actuator. The Achilles heel isn’t the brassware part of the valve which contains the ball – it’s the gearing arrangement, which consists of a small cog on the synchronous motor, which operates a quadrant made of mild steel with teeth stamped (rather than 'cut') on the edge. With the passage of time, and especially when the valve isn’t operated through the summer months, the valve starts to seize up, making it harder for the motor to move the quadrant, and the teeth start to wear and eventually slip. Sometimes a new synchronous motor with its new brass cog will suffice, sometimes a new operator will be needed, which – provided the lever which operates the ball on the valve can be moved back and forth with finger pressure - will suffice, in which case the operator can be removed by taking out a couple of screws without the need to drain down the system. But if (as is often the case), the valve is stiff; it makes more sense to change the whole valve, which calls for a partial drain down of the system. Service engineers tend to be reluctant to change the whole valve as they’re usually in a very awkward place in the airing cupboard and a devil to get at, so the engineer often hopes for the best and just changes the operator, only then changinig the rest of the valve if that doesn't do the trick.

In the first 19 years of living in this house since new, I’ve had to fit two new operators, and three years ago, a whole valve as the ball was totally seized.

A complete valve is about £100 retail. EG:

http://www.screwfix.com/p/honeywell-v407...1626654437

Actuator, typically £50.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_fln=1&_itemId=220824648137&_nkw=HONEYWELL+V4073A+ACTUATOR+40003916+003+NEW

BG prices are at the top end, but from past experience having served my time with the then ‘Gas Board’ and spent 40 years in service management at every level with what later became BG, I’d say there are three things that work in the customers' favour with BG. Firstly, because BG service so many appliances, that engineers soon become familiar with particular faults on particular boilers. Secondly, certainly throughout my career, their training was second to none. Lastly, they have a huge spares backup due to the sheer volume of work they do. The engineer will have a laptop and if (unlikely) he doesn’t have the part on his van, he’ll be able to say when he can return.

I don’t think Colin’s bill for the work done was over the top and I doubt a local ‘Gas-Safe’ plumber would have charged much less. If he rings BG, he'll talk right away to someone in a call centre. If he rings a local plumber, he may well get a message on a mobile phone saying 'sorry, please leave a message and I'll get back to you'. (sometime, whenever). Low overheads, lower prices perhaps, but no back-up infrastructure.

[pwdrive]

Those 3 port valves were the same type I fitted when I installed the oil fired CH system in the last place we were in, I used all Honeywell bits configured as a "Y" plan, I did not fit any isolation valves in the primary circuit (HW) as I thought it could be dangerous if they were inadvertantly left closed.
I do know that any kind of valve in the primary circuit of a solid fuel boiler is an absolute no no for obvious reasons.
The oil fired system I put in worked very well, the only gripe was the cost of the oil, the last lot we bought before we moved was around 28 pence per litre.

Lawrence.

[Radio Fixer]

Good info David and if you are not into CH yourself then a lot in BGs favour. Me, I hate service contracts and dont have any, neither insurance on any products. So we may end up cold for longer while I go for a fix, if that fails or its around the GAS then I have to see if my local CH firm will sort it ..."Please soon, grovel grovel ".

Thinking about it, its decades since I was inside one of those valves, the type I was describing was the simple straight thru and I always fitted a pair. That way the boiler could do HW and CH at the same time. I have never been inside a diveter and seen the rubber ball. I never had a gear box failure, it was always the micro switches which were changeable.

But apart from the boiler which is less complex than many, I have a very simple system. No valves, gravity for HW with cylinder (and immersion backup), directly above and just the pump (easy to change although these are amazingly reliable these days (shush!!)) .

If all fails and I get a major boiler failure and the local CH firm lets me down then I will have to go the BG route.

Gary

[pwdrive]

Yes, gravity hot water, nice and simple, nowt to go wrong apart from any possible joint leaks, I did my boiler connections using plumbers blue and hemp rope, that hemp rope sure does the biz.

Lawrence.

[Nick]

All our heating (standard emitter and UF) and hot water comes from a ground-source heat pump (and had done for 7 years now). CH is a pressurised system via a buffer tank.

No annual service needed. Very little to go wrong - sealed system - at least a 25 year life span - top it up with about 2 ltrs of tap water once a year - some water is lost in the system through osmosis in the 600mtrs of underground pipe...

Basically an industrial 3-phase fridge and heat exchanger. No oil or gas - we buy "green" electricity at a commercial rate - stupidly efficient and cheap to run. Just sits in the corner and hums along quietly... I'd recommend them to anyone (who had an appropriate house and grounds).

The heat pump is the small box - the larger white box is a 300 ltr storage/buffer tank - the red "Bottle" is the standard pressurised CH system expansion tank - plumbing is completely the same as a normal gas or oil boiler with mains pressurised CH - the GS pump can produce up to 300lts of 55C water per hour down to -25 outside, Very cute...

   

Makes a right mess of the lawn for a while though...