Oil Boiler Isolation Switch.

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Is it not better just for the boiler to "top up" the heat in the 32 litres store of hot water rather than heat up from cold every time a hot tap is opened?  Surely that is why a hot water storage tank is included in the boiler. And what happens if there is a need, say in the middle of the night, for hot water if the hot water timer if off?

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mapj1:

secondly it's beyond the wit and imagination of a Millennial to be able to use it, they don't do analogue. ? 

There are quite a few that do not do digits very well either to be fair...

On complex control panels (kit which a decade or two ago would have been a console that carried 20 moving coil meters) we go to great pains not to have an array of 7 segment displays, or ons screen and hidden 20 push menus, but to mimic either an analogue movement or a bar-graph of some kind, even if it is a picture of a moving needle meter on an LCD screen. We also arrange all the metering so that the 'happy' state is with the needles or bar-graphs all in the same position - the eye is very  fast at spotting the one meter pointing the other way or the one bar-graph that is lower than the others.

It is too easy in the digits to read 100, 100, 10,0  as 3 identical readings, but 2 needles flickering around 2 O'clock and one sulking at about 9 o'clock is very obvious  even to a passing glance to alert that one PA has dropped  out or one battery is flat or whatever.

Like putting the buttons far enough apart and with a positive click, and all rotary controls to "wind up" intuitively, i.e. increase clockwise, all this 'human factors' stuff is nothing new in the last 50 years, but for for software it seems folk forget it.



 

 

Also, younger people's skills....

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8139019/Nearly-two-thirds-millennials-work-iron.html


Z.

 

Alan Capon:

Zoomup:

Is it not better just for the boiler to "top up" the heat in the 32 litres store of hot water rather than heat up from cold every time a hot tap is opened?  Surely that is why a hot water storage tank is included in the boiler. And what happens if there is a need, say in the middle of the night, for hot water if the hot water timer if off?

The heat store is used to provide hot water quickly from a combiboiler when needed, rather than having to wait for the boiler to possibly heat from cold. The heat store will also be able to provide some hot water on its own when the boiler “hot water” is turned off. An example of this, would be overnight where water was only required for hand washing. If the occupants go to work, then it would be usual to set the hot water to off during the day, until the time they return. Either way, I believe the building regs require a time clock, regardless of whether the occupants choose to set it to “permanently on”. 


As Andy has already said, you are probably should have a pipe stat to work with the frost stat, especially if the boiler is outside. 


Regards,


Alan. 

 

Alan Capon:

Upgrading the controls to modern standards can save money too. I spent a few hundred on controls for my 15 year old oil boiler about three years back, and the savings in oil use broke even in two years. 


Regards,


Alan. 

Sparkingchip:

The cost of having a boiler cycling 24/7 to keep stored hot water or the boiler itself up to temperature is very significant and wasteful.

Sparkingchip:

Surprisingly yes, people have their boilers cycling when they don't actually need the hot water to be up to full temperature.


Also many people don't understand the Eco button on many combi boilers or that many combi boilers can be fitted with a timer to control preheating of the boiler.