Plumbing advice needed

[ChrisJC]

Yeah I have no idea as it has been post-processed to reduce the resolution. But I thought nobody would actually care that much!

And I like Roy's house - not to my taste, but eclectic nonetheless! The joys of living by yourself I suppose - I'd never get away with that.

Chris.

 

[royfellows]

How do you like something that is not to your taste?

Next home project is a full size replica 1862 model Gatling Gun. Look wicked in the living room.

 

[tomferry]

Nice projects !!

My favourite old fashioned gun would this followed by the Gatling gun


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lqvI3j2wmh0

 

[royfellows]

He got a bargain at $20K USD, even in the USA. A 1/3 size reproduction Gatling made by a guy in Barnstaple Devon fetched about ?14K  on eBay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwYmbeMY-yQ

You dont get anything like these on the market here, none in private possession that I know of.

 

[sinker]

How do you like something that is not to your taste?

Next home project is a full size replica 1862 model Gatling Gun. Look wicked in the living room.

Love the bar Roy. Especially the Mitchells & Butlers Brew XI bar towel.
Used to be my favourite pint in The Armada pub, Slade Road, Gravelly Hill. Now sadly demolished and a petrol station in its place. 

 

[Judi Durber]

Pete,

That is exactly the same thing that is happening to my hot water /central heating. (so having less showers at mo!! )

I thought it started happening after I upgraded from Hive vI to vII so spent almost 4 hrs with Hive Support trying lots of control permutations.   

Found out that as I have a header tank, immersion heater tank and part pumped the indicator light should be blue not green.

Still not fixed so now waiting for a visit.   

If I do my homework and study the responses on here I might sound a little knowledgeable when they turn up 

 

[Cantclimbtom]

I had that problem years ago, lousy hot water and rads would get warm in all rooms when you used hot water. I think it's a common fault. In my case a plumber/heating engineer that lived roughly opposite swapped the valve/actuator all together. He did it freebies because I scared off theives breaking into his van in the night a month earlier so I never looked into if you could get separate to save money. When I described it to him he knew what it was before he even looked at it, so can't be that rare a problem!

 

[PeteHall]

Turns out that the actuator comes off with a small plastic clip.

Manually operating the valve, it's clearly leaking into the central heating system when it's supposed to be closed.

Obviously there aren't any isolator valves nearby, so I'll need to drain the system to change it. One for another day. I've manually closed the radiator valves in the meantime...

 

[royfellows]

Turns out that the actuator comes off with a small plastic clip.

Manually operating the valve, it's clearly leaking into the central heating system when it's supposed to be closed.

Obviously there aren't any isolator valves nearby, so I'll need to drain the system to change it. One for another day. I've manually closed the radiator valves in the meantime...

Check the pipework out for a gate valve somewhere, could be under insulation wrap, some are actuated with a screwdriver so dont have a valve wheel. Its unusual for a system to not have an ordinary gate valve somewhere for situations such as yours.

 

[PeteHall]

Turns out that the actuator comes off with a small plastic clip.

Manually operating the valve, it's clearly leaking into the central heating system when it's supposed to be closed.

Obviously there aren't any isolator valves nearby, so I'll need to drain the system to change it. One for another day. I've manually closed the radiator valves in the meantime...

Check the pipework out for a gate valve somewhere, could be under insulation wrap, some are actuated with a screwdriver so dont have a valve wheel. Its unusual for a system to not have an ordinary gate valve somewhere for situations such as yours.

Trust me, I've checked Roy. No valve from the boiler cupboard, through to the airing cupboard as far as where it goes under the floor boards. I've not taken up the carpet or floor to look further, but if it's not accessible, I doubt they installed one. Like I said earlier, the previous owner clearly went for the cheapest tradesmen every time... 

 

[Cantclimbtom]

I was going to suggest you add an isolator valve on the DHW side and use an Aladdin so no draining, but then I saw the price of a 22mm and couldn't believe it, makes heating engineers look cheap

https://www.screwfix.com/c/tools/misc-plumbing-tools/cat6750008?brand=aladdin

 

[PeteHall]

Looks a handy thing, but at ?140, I'd rather drain the system and install a normal isolator for ?4.30

 

[wormster]

My pervious house in Cheddar needed the boiler replacing, the Gas Board came and did the job. (Oh it was a combi system, no header tanks - I was going to convert the airing cupboard in the back room into a secret book nook!) anyhoo, after one year the boiler broke down, I had 2 separate Gas Board "Engineers" to look at it, (the second knew our very own Mr O'Doc as he lived in the same village) each diagnosed differernt faults and replaced parts - all to no avail, no hot water no heating! - I didn't mind as it was late spring early summer. I got fed up with this and threatened leagal action - sale of goods etc.... the Gas Board then sent a 3rd Engineer from the manufacturer to fix the problem, she walked in opened the boiler up, looked at the mess that the other "Engineers" had left behind, muttered a few unspeakable words, replaced a few things, and then took the control board out, explained to me that the work that had been carried out was to the most part "stabbing in the dark", because an updated controller had been released which fixed the fault I was having. A new board was popped in and tweaking a few PID'S in the controller and presto the system fired up and was running sweetly when the house sold a while back.

Nowt to do with the O/P's problem, but a boiler story that ended well

 

[ChrisJC]

Those clowns are not engineers. It is very frustrating to a real engineer (like myself) to be categorised with 'fitters' and 'technicians'.

Chris.

 

[Cantclimbtom]

Unfortunately they are "engineers" because the word is so vague. Anyone from Sir Frank Whittle to Frank Spencer can be called engineer. In other trades you'd distinguish between architect and site labourer but for peculiar historical reasons "engineer" is a very very broad brush. Point taken they're not "professional engineers".

 

[sinker]

Those clowns are not engineers. It is very frustrating to a real engineer (like myself) to be categorised with 'fitters' and 'technicians'.

Chris.

What defines an Engineer (I always capitalise the word)...?

Practitioner of "engineering"...?
A degree?
Membership of a professional body?
Experience?
Certain professions?
Or just a job title?? 

discuss....

 

[cavemanmike]

A degree in my opinion.
Anything else is just bollacks.
I had a friend who claimed to be a Toyota engineer.
Turned out he was a production worker.
A lot of employers give there work force inflated titles to giving them a deflated salary. Works everytime

 

[ChrisJC]

I would go with a Degree as a minimum, maybe being chartered too?

I believe in Germany it is illegal to call yourself an Engineer unless you meet certain criteria (but I don't know what they are!!).

Chris MEng, CEng, MIET.

 

[Cantclimbtom]

Degree on its own means little, long gone are the days when having a degree was a relative rarity.
Professional Engineer is a good way to distinguish a professional from a fitter etc

"Engineer" has been used in English for about 300 years to mean anything from grease monkey to train driver (although for driving fell out of British English in early 20thC) to large engine mechanic, to professional engineer. Therein lies your problem

Only a BSc in Eng (not BEng/MEng, so I may be outranked here)

 

[Fjell]

In most of the world including UK engineering, you have engineers and technicians. Engineers design things and make choices, technicians execute the design and run and maintain systems. They are different jobs, and senior technicians are often better paid as they are hard to find. Engineers tend to migrate to management to get ahead.

In Germany you are called Herr Ingenieur, or possibly Herr Doktoringenieur if you are postgrad. They take it very seriously. Very Seriously. No sense of humour whatsoever (OK, even less than normal). And if you are not German but called Herr Doktoringenieur Karl von Meyenfeldt they will collapse at your feet because they think you are an aristocratic Doktoringenieur, even if you are not. And if you are Dutch, and the boss of this German operation, there is no end to payback for nicking all the bikes.