How does the heating work?

[nowait]

Im hoping people can enlighten me on how the hell the heating system works in the Harron houses.
So far I think:
- There is a boiler in the kitchen that heats hot water and then sends it to a tank upstairs and the radiators?
- The control pad on the wall in the kitchen controls water on / off times, and the heating schedule / temperature.
- There is a second control pad in the bedroom, does that just control the bedroom? When this is on does it heat the whole system?
- What is an immersion heater and why is that really bad to use?

Basically, I think the controls are really difficult to use and was thinking about replacing it with a v3 Nest thermostat but want to understand how it work first.

On a more tech side, from looking at the actual boiler, it looks like there maybe 3 electronic valves?, a turn dial thermostat, 3 wires into a junction box going to valve looking things and the thermostat plus one other to a large black box on a pipe.
Then a gloworm boiler with 2 wires, a tp9000 controller and a tp4000 in the bedroom.

Can anyone enlighten me with as much information as possible? Tech and/or other would be amazing!

[teddyowner]

If it's like ours
The heating/water timer controls the heating on 2 floors
The smaller thermostat/timer can be set independently and just controls the 1 floor
An immersion heater is like a giant electric kettle and can be used to heat water if the gas goes off. Damned expensive to use, ours is switched off at the fuse box to prevent it being turned on by mistake.

[chris1983]

Hope this helps

- There is a boiler in the kitchen that heats hot water and then sends it to a tank upstairs and the radiators?
the hot water tank and the radiators are on separate loops so that the boiler can heat the hot water or the radiators or both depending on demands.

- The control pad on the wall in the kitchen controls water on / off times, and the heating schedule / temperature.
correct, set the water on and off time to suit your needs, our hot water is set to come on at 4am until 7am as i get up early for work and the missus not so early so i have a shower and any hot water i use is then heated back up again ready for when the missus has her shower. Same with the heating, ours is off during the day when we are not in

- There is a second control pad in the bedroom, does that just control the bedroom? When this is on does it heat the whole system?
the heating in most modern homes is dual zone, In our house its the master bedroom and the ensuite thats the second zone, the heating needs to be be on, on the main controller in the kitchen but this controller will only command the boiler to come on if the temperature in the bedroom falls below the preset. if this preset is not reached then the bedroom radiators will not come on. this is independent to the rest of the radiators

- What is an immersion heater and why is that really bad to use?
This is a heating element in the top of the hot water tank, it works along the same principle as a kettle element so the heating element is immersed in the tank and will heat up your water for you. this is useful if your boiler packs up but should be used as a back up only. This is not an efficient way to heat your water. Also whilst it will turn off once the water reaches temperature, as soon as the temperature in the tank drops it will turn straight back on again. so you effectively heat your hot water 24hours a day, not something you would set the controller in the kitchen to do.

Basically, I think the controls are really difficult to use and was thinking about replacing it with a v3 Nest thermostat but want to understand how it work first.
Can't comment on the Nest as i've never used one.

On a more tech side, from looking at the actual boiler, it looks like there maybe 3 electronic valves?, a turn dial thermostat, 3 wires into a junction box going to valve looking things and the thermostat plus one other to a large black box on a pipe.


two of the valves are for your central heating (main house, and master bedroom) third is for the hot water,

the turn dial thermostat, is that located on the boiler or the hot water tank? If on the boiler this is the internal temperature at which the boiler will operate, if on the hot water tank then its the temperature that your hot water comes out of the taps

The rest, without looking at i wouldn't know.

[p99ull]

Nov 17, 2015 18:53:28 GMT nowait said:

Im hoping people can enlighten me on how the hell the heating system works in the Harron houses.
So far I think:
- There is a boiler in the kitchen that heats hot water and then sends it to a tank upstairs and the radiators?
- The control pad on the wall in the kitchen controls water on / off times, and the heating schedule / temperature.
- There is a second control pad in the bedroom, does that just control the bedroom? When this is on does it heat the whole system?
- What is an immersion heater and why is that really bad to use?

Basically, I think the controls are really difficult to use and was thinking about replacing it with a v3 Nest thermostat but want to understand how it work first.

On a more tech side, from looking at the actual boiler, it looks like there maybe 3 electronic valves?, a turn dial thermostat, 3 wires into a junction box going to valve looking things and the thermostat plus one other to a large black box on a pipe.
Then a gloworm boiler with 2 wires, a tp9000 controller and a tp4000 in the bedroom.

Can anyone enlighten me with as much information as possible? Tech and/or other would be amazing!

I think you've got most of your answers :-)

Just one one thing to add, if it's like ours, you can set the temperature for on and set the temperature for off.  Technically, if you set the temperature high when setting the off temp, your heating will NEVER go off! If you want it to properly go off, set the off temp to something really really low (eg 5).  This will probably sound really stupid to anyone who doesn't have the same controller as we do, but hopefully it will make sense to you.

One last piece of advice.  If you google your contorller model on-line, you should be able to dowlonad a full user manual (we did).

Paul

ps: if you're around the bottom end of Bradfield way give me a shout and I'll happily come round and talk you through it if it helps :-)

[nowait]

Thanks guys thats loads of really useful information!

Yeah I have downloaded the manuals and the secret service installation menu, but I dont really rate the interface considering its the 21st century! It seems like making changes to the system takes alot of work.
That and my partner has not worked it out at all. We suddenly have no hot water in a morning and its usually because she has turned off the water thinking she had done something else!

Thanks for the offer Paul, we are just round the corner but will have a go at programming it until I decide if to buy a shiny new nest thermostat to play with

[p99ull]

No problem. Just let me know. Happy to pop round if you want a tutorial :-)

[L&N]

The heating system totally goes over my head? And we have been in 6 month ?

[stanley]

Mine doesn't work, it's a bag of shite.
Every hour I have to go in the garage and reset the boiler because of f23 alarm code.

Had about 8 different people visit now, but they all do a different thing to remedy it, so it is going nowhere.

Harron couldn't build a kinder egg toy, let alone houses with values exceeding £250k.

What a bunch of clowns.

[Luke]

Great reply from Chris. I guess it is a simple enough to task to change yo a new controller. I was thinking of the Honeywell Evohome. Does anyone have any knowledge of this one? Cheers

[nightowl]

I'm in a Harron home. The heating controls do seem complex at first, but I read the instructions, re programmed it and no issues, worked fine since, no need for me to change controls.

[Rich]

Dec 12, 2015 20:27:06 GMT stanley said:

Mine doesn't work, it's a bag of shite.
Every hour I have to go in the garage and reset the boiler because of f23 alarm code.

Had about 8 different people visit now, but they all do a different thing to remedy it, so it is going nowhere.

Harron couldn't build a kinder egg toy, let alone houses with values exceeding £250k.

What a bunch of clowns.

We had a similar problem initially, can't remember the fault code, but the boiler kept resetting. Ended up being an electrical issue which Harron's contractors Southern Electrical sorted for us.

[highonthehill]

I recently bled the radiators - this has resulted in the pressure in the hot water tank upstairs going down to zero - does anyone know how to increase the pressure?

UPDATE: I spoke to the plumber and he advised me to let water into the system by turning the valve open next to the flexible hose. This is done by using a slotted screwdriver.

[matty]

We replaced our over complicated Harron controller after 6 months of not been able to control either the heating or hot water properly. I had 2 Hive controllers fitted instead. They are amazing so easy to use and I can program it from the Hive app on my phone. British Gas were great took an hour to fit the control units to the heating system. I now have total control over the heating and water.  Hive has more or less paid for its self through lower bills as I now have total control......would recommend.

[mrpag]

Did they remove the existing control units and replace them with the hive units

[matty]

Yes the engineer did everything it is linked by a box to the wifi. she put it out of the way in the immersion heater room out of the way. they also gave me hive lighting free which is great too. the Harron system was so hard to use. Hive is easy ....