elementary my dear watson

[senorjackson]

Sorry about the dreadful subject title but we're having problems with our watson range which doubles up as boiler and oven. The range provides plenty of heat for the cooker and hot water yet is really struggling to provide sufficient heat to the radiators ( apart from the one in the bathroom which is for heat loss) i don't know how many watson owners there are out there but if you do have any suggestions please do feel free to put them forward as I get the impression that a lot of plumbers don't know how to deal with them!

thanks in advance

Senor

 

[skier-hughes]

Has it ever worked properly?
If so, something has changed to make it not work, have you had any plumbing done? Changes to the system which might have upset it?
If not, then check out it's specs, to make sure that it is of a sufficient rating to manage to heat all your rads, our rayburn could do 8 med rads, we had 19 very large ones connected!!
Also, if you have stats on them, make sure they are turned up or in this weather they probably are saying, no need to heat the rad

 

[senorjackson]

we have had watson serviced recently by specialist company and boiler is working to 87% efficiency and have recently upgraded system from single pipe to flow and return since purchasing house last month. Boiler can apparently cope with 75000 btu and can be upgraded to 100 if needed ( that should be enough possibly!)

Thanks for the message

Senor

 

[skier-hughes]

But at any time in this month has it been able to produce boiling hots rads?
If it did before the flow/return system was installed it may be that this isn't working right.
Have you done heat calculations then on all your rads to ensure that the btu is sufficient?

 

[senorjackson]

Apart from the heat loss in the bathroom, the system was tepid at best, the plumber who upgraded from single flow has concerns about boiler strength but there are only 10 radiators in whole house (3 bed victorian) which doesn't seem a lot to me. The plumber has just completed work and he has had trouble getting the heating system on properly as it gets to 65degrees then appears to cut out.

senor

 

[Penners]

Buenas tardes, senor,

75k to 100k Btu gives us some of the necessary information, but how many radiators do you have, of roughly what size?

And of course, how big/well insulated is the the house?

 

[senorjackson]

Hola y buenas,

the house is poorly insulated- we are waiting to get loft fully insulated. About 150m squared 3 bed victorian house with 9 ft ceilings with 10 reasonable sized - quite big radiators in total.

cheers

senor

 

[Penners]

Hmmm - well, on the face of it you shouldn't have too much trouble running ten rads on 75k - 100k Btu.

The plumber has just completed work and he has had trouble getting the heating system on properly as it gets to 65degrees then appears to cut out.

Is there an overheat cutout on the boiler? Many of them have this device.

Most plumbers in my experience recommend setting your boiler stat to 60 degrees C, but I wouldn't have though that 65 took you into overheat territory. Perhaps the cutout is faulty.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Are you sure the pump is working efficiently? It may be running slowly or undersized for the system.In which case the rads will be slow to warm up and it might lead to slow flow through the boiler leading to overheat/cut out problems.

I suspect this is unlikely, but worth checking.

 

[senorjackson]

Thanks for all the messages- I have got the system working better but don't know how a watson really works and i think that is the key is getting to fully understand that side of the operation!

Any watson users please feel to reply!

thanks

senor

 

[Penners]

I wonder whether these people could help you out with a User Manual: http://www.heritageheating.co.uk/about.html