Hive dual or single receiver

[ChrisB90]

Hi all. First post so bare with me!

House setup - Ideal Logic H18 boiler and Kingspan Tribune XE, Hive active heating installed with multi zone (2 controls) Hive dual channel receiver wired to the boiler and a single channel receiver wired to the Tribune XE.


We have been having issues with hot water delivery. An electrician checked wiring and suggested we should have a dual receiver fitted to the Tribune instead of a single receiver. Does this sound right? Why would this be?

Thanks in advance

 

[Mottie]

Have you been having trouble since installation or has it been working fine but is not now?

 

[Deleted member 267285]

What issues?

Are you sure the single channel is wired to the tribune and not just the wiring center?

Photos of cylinder cupboard would be beneficial here.

 

[ericmark]

Most central heating is a compromise, as it would cost too much to install a system which heated every room only as required, so the heating engineers job is to decide what is required to ensure the system preforms as required.

The storage tank (Kingspan Tribune XE) can be used just for DHW, but can also be used to combine heating sources, so a boiler, solar panels and wood burner can all contribute to the heating system.

Unless linked, a TRV can't tell the boiler to run, so we often have multi wall thermostats, this allows for when sun is shining or not, and wind direction and they are wired in parallel, but also we can use them with zone valves, so one section of the home can be independently controlled, I have my flat under main house independently controlled to main house.

It all depends how plumbed and wired to what is does, and with wifi linked TRV heads often there is not need for multi wall thermostats or multi room zone valves, a TRV is after all a zone valve.

So the heating engineer goes to University to learn how to install a system with minimum hard ware which will do the job, he decides which rooms need a simple TRV, which need programmed TRV, and which need linked programmable TRV's and when to use multi-room zone valves and how to control it all.

In the early days of central heating it was just used to warm the room before lighting the fire, it was just a back ground heat, today we have moved on. So pictures normally best idea, but not enough info to answer as it is.

 

[ChrisB90]

Thanks for the replies. We have been experiencing very little hot water during hot weather periods (I guess this is because the boiler is not firing up, therefore the water is cold without additional heat?).

Multi zone was originally in the house when built (main bedroom/en suite is separated from the rest of the house)

The single channel receiver is wired to the white box at the top (image below), I believe this to be the wiring centre.

 

[ChrisB90]

Apologies, I think this is actually the wiring centre* that the hive is wired to.

 

[Exedon]

I would say your sparks is correct.
I take it you have 2 heating zones?
The cylinder should be wired to the correct channel of the dual channel one heating zone on other channel. Single channel receiver to do other heating zone.

 

[ericmark]

I can see two motorised valves

but from picture can't work out how connected. To have a Hive two channel and single channel I would have expected three motorised valves, but the levers on the valves

will go slack when activated, so you can work out what does what.

In the main the thermostat/programmer works the valves, and valves work the boiler, and there are micro switches inside the valves which have been known to fail or stick. So if it did work, and then stopped would be looking at motorised valves.

I am an electrician not a plumber, and I have needed to sit down and draw out plans in the past to see how the system works, my own house is something like this which took some doing, but now much easier to fault find as even though I rewired it, 2 years latter hard to remember what I had done, you need some thing similar for your system.

When I moved in here, found to turn central heating on, I needed to go outside walk around the house down a set of steps into the flat under the house, and plug in the central heating pump. There was a lovely sticker saying call this number for boiler service, and this one for electricians, both numbers clearly went into the black list, why any firm would admit they had wired it I don't know? Heath Robinson had nothing on this bunch, I wonder if that's why they sold the house?

But people seem to think a plumber or electrician will know how all water is connected and how all electrical systems are connected, this is not true, if you want a heating system installed you ask a heating and ventilation engineer, not a plumber, the plumbing trade is all about how to work with lead, so the church roof etc, is as much their job as fitting a tap, OK may not be in lead any more, but they do the jobs which a real plumber would have done in the past.

Pipe fitter is very different, working often with steel pipes 36" diameter, they need to cut, and grind them so when the crane lifts them into place, they fit first time, very skilled, they may also work with smaller pipes, where they don't need a crane, but each trade has a range of jobs they do, and asking a kitchen fitter to do electrics, or a plumber to fit boilers, they may be able to do the job, but are not always trained to do it.

Boilers are a trade of their own, although in the home the last thing we want is for the boiler to actually boil water. Why we still call them boilers I don't know.

But I walk into a house, and think what was in the mind of the guy who fitted this? Or designed this? When Drayton make a three zone programmer/thermostat, why would anyone fit a two zone and single zone Hive?

OK I made a mistake in hind sight fitting Nest Gen 3, but I am an electrician not a heating and ventilation engineer. So when Energenie TRV's said they worked with Nest I believed it.