Boiler woes during cold weather

[Adam B]

Just wanted to pass this issue past the PH BSometer

My flat has gas CH and HW, proper boiler with a full-size tank not a combi. Block of flats is only 6 years old so everything pretty modern.

For the last few months the hot water has started either run out very quickly or never got more than lukewarm.

Anyway joined the BG boiler cover which includes a free service, BG plumber came out and gave it a clean bill of health but his advice was to just leave the HW on permanently until weather warms up.

Now I appreciate when the weather turns chilly the water coming into the system is probably very cold, however surely if the HW is on permanently during the night it shoudl be piping hot in the morning. The thermostat on the tank is on max.

A few times this has not been the case, and qutie frankly I woudl think a decent system would not need to be on 24/7 in order to get a good supply of hot water for the morning / evening shower run.

Any have the same issue or gave any ideas whether something could be wrong?

[hairyben]

Try using a real heating engineer instead of some of the cretins BG employ.

Could be the valve, stats usually just fail rather than go intermittent, or something else wet related (I'm a spark), presume you've tried the boiler on a higher setting?

[PD9]

As above - I'd check out independently. How many radiators do you have in your flat and whats the 'H-E' rating of your boiler?

[Ferg]

Cylinder should be on a 20 minute recovery. Something's wrong. Partial air-locking in the cylinder coil can do this. Valve or stat problem. Boiler differential thermistors....

[Ricky_M]

Check to see what temperature your cylinder stat is clicking at. If it is clicking near to the max and the temperature is lukewarm. Could be the cylinder stat at fault.

If not, when the cylinder is calling for heat. Check that the boiler fires up and physically feel the pipework going into the cylinder make sure the flow and return is getting hot. If they don't warm up, could be a number of things. Faulty zone valve, air lock to name a few.

Also check there are no gate valves that could have been shut or turned right down on the DHW flow or return.

[Hereward]

Is your Hot Water on a programmable timer? Any chance it's been fiddled with so may only be on for 10 minutes a day, or something silly like that?

[Adam B]

thanks for the advice:

7 radiators + 1 towel rail

no one is messing with the timer - its on constant

good to know its just not right but loath to spend my own cash on another engineer when i am paying for BG insurance