I'll try to be clear in a field of which I know little…
I have a new pellet boiler feeding hot water into a puffer for radiators and hot tap water. A thermostat in the house requests water at given intervals for the radiators. Fine, when I go on holiday, I tell the thermostat to wake up the day before I get back. But in the meantime, the puffer has been cooling due to heat loss and the boiler has been keeping the puffer temperature up. I would like the whole system to shut down until I programme it to wake up.
Now, the manufacturer tells me there is a wire bridge on the circuit board. Without it, the boiler stays off, so what I would like to do is put a timer in on this. It's just one wire: out of one connector into another. Are there any times for just one cable? All those I've seen are plug-in between a power source and the utility. Any ideas? Thanks!
Programmable timer for boiler without touching thermostat
boilertimer
Related Solutions
Should the sight glass of a steam boiler always be within the recommended range? Or only when firing
I talked to the guy who originally installed the boiler and he suggested that the pressure was probably a bit high (was set to 1.5 PSI) for our house; if the pressure is too high, then more steam than the radiators can handle is sent out at a time, and therefor the steam doesn't condense back to water at the radiators at first, so the water level gets low and the auto feeder turns on.
I turned down the pressure to just below 1 PSI and it seems to have done the trick, the water level on the site glass doesn't go down as far while the boiler is operating. Also, according to this article, steam heat pressure really does't need to be high at all, so there is no worry on my end about turning it down.
In order to turn down the pressure I adjusted the screw at the top of the box next to the pressure gauge:
When the boiler is running (especially in heating rather than hot water mode) watch the pressure gauge: does it rise almost all the way to maximum? And do you then get a sudden discharge of hot water through the pressure relief discharge (PRD) valve and pipe to the outside of the building? (If the boiler is mounted on an external wall the PRD pipe usually goes directly through the wall behind the boiler.)
If so this is where you're losing water (and hence pressure). It indicates that the expansion vessel (probably built-into the boiler) is faulty. It may just have lost pressure (there's a Schraeder(sp?) car-tyre-style valve you can use to top it up) but could have failed entirely (e.g. if water comes out of the air valve!). For expansion vessels built into boilers it's often more trouble and expense than it's worth to replace the fitted one and quite acceptable to fit a vessel externally.
The uk.d-i-y usenet newsgroup is generally a good place to discuss this sort of problem. There is also a wiki/faq at http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/
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Best Answer
You need a relay, which is a usually part of a timer - but you need a timer which has separate contacts for its power, and the relay contacts, rather than a plug-in type timer that combines those.
This is not an uncommon configuration, but shopping questions are off-topic so you'll have to find one yourself. I wlll make a general comment that "DIN" relays (designed for mounting on a "DIN Rail" as part of industrial control solutions) often appear to be the most reliable form of these, but there are other form factors available.
You could also use a "plug-in timer" connected to a separate relay, but that's more parts than you actually need.
Concern: If you turn off the system completely while you are away, what happens if the temperature drops below freezing? Could be rather messy, which is why most systems are simply set back to 50-55F or 10-12C rather than being turned off, at least in heating season.