Gas central heating - why won't it work? Pigletjohn?

[doglover]

We moved house in July and have been blessed with great weather............ until now!
There is a newish Worcester combi boiler which provides our hot water really efficiently but when dh pressed set the switch for the heating to come on, the radiators are stone cold.
Can anyone suggest what we should do? Is it a case of calling a plumber/heating engineer tomorrow?
TIA

[ZolaBuddleia]

Is there a thermostat? Do your radiators have thermostatic valves?

It might be that you've switched on the heating at the boiler end, but the radiators are not being activated.

[doglover]

Yes to thermostat, ZB. Dh fiddled with it but am not sure about radiators. Will check ................... Many thanks.

[2kidsintow]

Have you got enough pressure?

We unwisely decided to bleed our radiators on New Year's Eve - and the central heating cut out. It took about 20 mins of reading the manual in an increasingly cold house before we realised that there was a gauge showing pressure and that bleeding the radiators had dropped the pressure to a level that wouldn't work. Turning a tap that was by the boiler raised the pressure and the radiators would then heat up.

[Marrow]

This may be a daft question but have you checked the temp the thermostat is set at and also checked the timer is set up properly? Also check the radiators are turned up.

[MummytoMog]

Look for a thermostat if you haven't found one yet. For our heating to come on the dial has to be set to heating and hot water on the boiler and the thermostat has to be set to on and either cold enough for heating or on override.

[MummytoMog]

Sorry cross posted! Yes, check the valves and the boiler pressure. Or it could be that your diverter valve has got a bit stuck, which is a quick fix for a plumber.

[doglover]

Gosh. I will check all this out tomorrow. I'm rather braindead now but this is fantastic advice. Many thanks

[NaturalBaby]

We moved in June and haven't turned ours on yet! I'm wondering how our buyers are getting on with our old boiler - it wouldn't work if the pressure dropped. It just had a switch to flick over to constant heating or timed heating.

[colleysmill]

Ummm this has happened to me and everything seemed ok - thermostats ok, pilot light on boiler and yet nothing happened.

Turned out we had an additional switch as an isolator for the boiler in a kitchen cupboard that needs to also be switched on to turn on the heating. I'd stuffed a load of cook books in the cupboard and accidentally switched it to off.

This is now the first thing I check if the heating wont work.

[PigletJohn]

Just seen this.

If the boiler gives hot water, then it should heat the radiators if both the timer and the room stat are on. Turn up the room stat and see. Does it click? It will not be pressure if the HW works.

Somebody might have turned off the rads with their knobs.

How old is the system?

If no joy, turn both Hw and CH off at. the programmer. After an hour, turn on CH only. Does the boiler start? Does it then quickly stop?

[doglover]

Thanks everyone. (Rolling sleeves up) I'll start my investigations today ...............

[2kidsintow]

Fixed? Or still freezing?

[doglover]

Just a quick update ....................... Heating DOES work!! Apparently the boiler has a wireless thermostat that dh found in a cupboard. By playing around with this, he got it going! Yay!

[2kidsintow]

Yay.

[DIddled]

Piglet John - I actually love you :)

[PigletJohn]

That will cost a little extra, of course.

[Selks]

[DIddled]

Ha ha- you are so generous with your time and knowledge- x