Central Heating Problems Explained

it's winter and it's cold so why is it your central heating always breaks down when it's like this and you just can't get a plumber but is it a plumber you need that's the big problem central heating systems are complicated that they're very simple they actually have got so many different things in them electronics electric plumbing and probably gas four different experts let's have a look and see which one you need central heating basically or normally is a system that pumps water around the house in order to do that it has to be switched on or off like a light switch you could have a thermostat on the wall which is hardwired nowadays radio controlled receivers and senders are kind of the norm inside here this receiver's got a little aerial and it responds to what this says if this is all live you can see it's on it doesn't need new batteries but that could be the first thing batteries second thing let's call for heat that's a term the plumber will use call for heat it's switched on that little lights come on and that's flashing can you see it and the green light came on now what's important here i'm going to turn it on again and it's not so much i want you to watch the green light come on i want you to listen for the green light to come on here we go again listen carefully so we're calling for heat there you go you heard that that little green light if it doesn't click the fault's in there inside here radio receiver some pretty simple electronics what goes wrong in there costs about 10 pence on the back of the circuit board there's one of these a condenser just switch it out for a new one i bought a pack of 10 because i'm switching them out pretty often that's the thing now if you've not got a soldering iron and you're not used to taking things apart that is probably not something you're going to do but if you're pretty handy two screws underneath switch it off first at the mains two screws underneath lift it off just literally clip the circuit board out and swap the old condenser for a new one it will work 10 to 50 p repair if you can't solder and you're not a mr fix it the simple way of doing this is look for one of these on the on the internet you can buy them new but you can get them second hand for about five quid maybe a tenner literally unscrew it clip your new one on and then all you've got to do is link your body up to the receiver there are videos on that so first thought could be batteries second fault it's a simple tempe condenser inside there now if you're not certain that it's that you could always take this one off take this one off little screws flick lift swap them over put them back switch the system back on and then use the other call for heat make it work with the one that you know works from this channel and that will then switch this on so you know that the channels working it was literally just this switch them back that one works there we know we've got to mend this one condenser or new receiver so what does this do this then switches something else on the next thing in the system so simple rules of safety if you're going to get inside the system or take anything apart any lid off turn the electric off do not work with the electricity on because everything we're talking about at the moment is electricity it's switching like a light switch so we know we actually use this to switch the system on or the term is call for heat we're going to switch it on we know that the little receiver up the top there is going to do the switching and click and send the electric down if it doesn't click we've mended it by either getting a new one or switching out the 10p 20p condenser it's sending electric signal down to here this will not surprise you that it's a tap so on the side there's a lever for manually switching the tap on you can feel it as you push it down that turns the tap on but the electric should do it itself how does something turn a tap on it needs a motor so inside here we have a motor no surprise that the valve is driven by a motor when the electricity comes down it makes the motor turn it opens the valve like a tap and it also switches a switch which sends the electrical system up to the boiler and the pump is just further along there this will also send power to the pump which should start running for us so if we know our send is working this is the switch if we know our receiver is working the next thing we need to look at is this the valve you should be able to hear it turn around you should be able to feel it's turning and then you should hear the actual heat come on if it doesn't then this is the fault and inside is a motor pretty simple a motor it's going to cost you about 8 quid maybe 10 sometimes a little bit more but inside that box is literally a motor and a switch and this is what goes wrong goes wrong quite often so you would be turning the electricity off to work on this you'd literally take this off with its one side on this one screw on the side the cover comes off and then the motor is exchanged you will find this is a honeywell one on the honeywell site and on most of the manufacturer's sites there's a very simple video to show you how to change the motor and they will sell you a honeywell motor but you can buy them on ebay and amazon so change the motor put the lid back on there is no plumbing involved there is no water involved because you're just switching out a motor that sits on the top of the tap you have not broken into the pipe if you want to change the whole valve system as well as the honeywell top then that does need a plumber because you're going to need to undo the two sides and drain off the system so i'll puppeteer here okay so in behind the cabinet which i've just bought away from the wall so when the valve switches on it sends electricity to the boiler and to the pump the pump turns the water is flowing it's going through the valve if this pump is not working it won't be spinning for any of the systems it just gets red hot a lot of pumps get really really red hot and they're not turning so it's getting the electricity it's burning itself out now i can hear this one going already there's a little trick that the plumbers do they sometimes they put a big screwdriver in there and go like that as it turns on turn it really quickly it's a bit like a starting motor though so it's got a bit of a jerk on it but that sometimes kick-starts the motor but if you've got a problem with the motor job for the plumber we're now into water engineering that's a plumber's job he would need to change this motor if it's not turning and pushing water and you can feel that you can feel it turning and you can feel the hot water coming through if there's no hot water coming through when you know everything else is working pumps probably stop working all pretty logical so far you've got a switch that sends a signal if it's remote that's probably got batteries in check the batteries it's sending we've got a receiver green light comes on click we know it's sending the signal further down the line we've got that little valve it's turning we can hear it were we know the water is open to be sent we hear the signal being sent up to the boiler if nothing's happening with your boiler it's time to get your boiler looked at and i would suggest you look at a proper gas engineer that's got a certification for the makeup boiler you're using not a plumber get yourself a proper gas engineer because inside here are things that they will have been trained to do they will be cleaning out pipes valves little bits that the plumber may never have been on the course to find out this is the job of a proper certified in this case worcester gas boiler engineer not someone's just gas safe someone who's worked on this particular boiler trust me it might cost you twice as much you'll get a proper job done this bit's just a bit of very static piece of plumbing unlikely it would go wrong but they're supposed to be cleaned out so if you have a service make sure you know you get a plumber and knows how to service this it's literally just a cleaner that's basically a water tank they do sometimes cause a problem but it'll be after a good few years and this valve at the top we found a problem that water pressure should be at least up to that red line which the plumbers put a mark on and it's too low so we're going to put some water in the tank so water engineer let's go have a look at the radiators now if the radiator is not getting hot we could have a number of problems here firstly there's two valves one at each end you probably always use the one at that end why is this one here it's here to balance up the systems because you've got two radiators like two baby cuckoos in a nest stealing the worms from the mum one radiator's greedy the other one not so fast so this one's getting all the heat and all the water and the one upstairs is getting no water well that's what this is for you can actually nip this down and make the water slightly more difficult to go through this route and you can open the one upstairs a little bit and make it easier for that to flow in which case you've actually taken the balance off this and put it upstairs so these ones at this end are to balance nip the greedy one down a bit and open the hard one up a bit if it's still not getting hot and your thermostat is up asking for heat it could be full of air if it's full of air you now need to look this normally where is it let's have a look here it'll be so with the little bleed key you literally undo this nut just a bit the air will come out then you'll have water with a rag watch it it could be very hot so with a rag catch the water clean it up nip the valve off nice and tight so now the air is probably going to be in the one upstairs the air goes to the top so the radiator up on the highest floor is probably the one full of air doesn't hurt to go around every single radiator and release the air if we've still got problems with this red and it's still not doing its job if it's old change it the new radiators are much much better this is actually a double fin double radiator it's probably very good this thermostat should be set at the temperature you want the room so you can have the system sending hot water but this radiator is probably going no thank you because the temperature's been set down a bit but you want the other room warmer so the radiator in that is turned up a bit so they could be set at different temperatures but if you want to balance them turn them all up to full heat and then balance the water flow using the other valve at the other end and then set this back at the temperature you want [Music] you