Is my boiler wired right?

rewireIT · Jun 15, 2023

Just looking at my boiler wiring out of interest, and just wondering if it's wired correctly.

So perma lives, neutrals and earths in the right place, but i can't figure out the switch lives to the controller.

If i follow the circuit it seems like the earth of the 4 core is acting as some sort of live to the controller even though the perma live is already there. If i volt stick it, the earth is live at both ends at all times, the black is showing 50v amperage only sometimes and then dead others.

From the wiring diagram i would have assumed the 4 core would go to the switch as L N E and the black would act as the sole switch wire.

What am i missing?

(Ps thanks for your help - i'm trying to get more into the domestic side of stuff having grown sick of site work so this is my first foray into stuff like boilers.)

PPS the controller is not a stat, it's just on/off. Timer/temp etc is built onto the boiler.

brianmoooore · Jun 15, 2023

Just because a wire is green/yellow doesn't necessarily make it an earth, especially if plumbers are involved!
Your controller is wired as 'volt free' , and the green/yellow has been used as a 'live'.
There doesn't appear to be a real earth at the controller, but it does look like there's one at the boiler.

rewireIT · Jun 15, 2023

brianmoooore said:
Just because a wire is green/yellow doesn't necessarily make it an earth, especially if plumbers are involved!
Your controller is wired as 'volt free' , and the green/yellow has been used as a 'live'.
There doesn't appear to be a real earth at the controller, but it does look like there's one at the boiler.

The boiler is definitely earthed.

So could you talk me through the controller and what the '1' and '2' are doing on the boiler? I can't visualise how this works.

I gather the yellow/green is a live and the black is the switch, so what is the brown doing?

In my head, we have perma live in to boiler, out to controller. 240v out from boiler to the controller, button on controller than activates the black, turning the boiler on.

So howcomes the black is sometimes giving voltage sometimes not, when the controller switch isn't being operated?

brianmoooore · Jun 15, 2023

Your boiler wiring diagram shows a link between two terminals at the top. This link has been removed and connected to the green/yellow and black wires, which, at the controller end, are connected to the switch terminals. The blue and brown supply power to the clock of the controller.
A five core cable should have been used, of course.

rewireIT · Jun 15, 2023

brianmoooore said:
Your boiler wiring diagram shows a link between two terminals at the top. This link has been removed and connected to the green/yellow and black wires, which, at the controller end, are connected to the switch terminals. The blue and brown supply power to the clock of the controller.
A five core cable should have been used, of course.

Ah ok that makes sense - so the yellow is power in from the boiler, the switch is operated on the controller then the black switches the boiler on.

Still any idea why i'm getting a voltage reading now and again on the black without operating any switches? It seems to be intermittently going live but only registering 50v.

davesparks · Jun 15, 2023

rewireIT said:
Still any idea why i'm getting a voltage reading now and again on the black without operating any switches? It seems to be intermittently going live but only registering 50v.

What are you using to measure the voltage? Is it a meter with a high or low input impedance?

Most likely is capacitive coupling (aka ghost voltage)

rewireIT · Jun 15, 2023

davesparks said:
What are you using to measure the voltage? Is it a meter with a high or low input impedance?

Most likely is capacitive coupling (aka ghost voltage)

Fluke T90 which the spec sheet says 200kohms input impedance.

davesparks · Jun 15, 2023

rewireIT said:
Fluke T90 which the spec sheet says 200kohms input impedance.

Interesting, you wouldn't normally expect that tester to display a voltage of it was due to capacitive coupling.

Does that model have the button to lower the input impedance?

What are you measuring the 50V with reference to? Is that 50V to earth, to neutral or something else?

rewireIT · Jun 16, 2023

davesparks said:
Interesting, you wouldn't normally expect that tester to display a voltage of it was due to capacitive coupling.

Does that model have the button to lower the input impedance?

What are you measuring the 50V with reference to? Is that 50V to earth, to neutral or something else?

L to N is coming up 50v on the stick. It's the version that is just 'prod and play', without the button.

littlespark · Jun 16, 2023

Is there a fault with the heating, or are you just worried about the workmanship?

oscar21 · Jun 16, 2023

Wonder why they didnt take the timeclock live from the live output of the boiler, its a rare occurrence when the boiler switch terminals are actually marked in and out.

DefyG · Jun 16, 2023

rewireIT said:
just wondering if it's wired correctly.

Not if G/Y have been used for 'Live' conductors, therefore omitting earth connections and within cables.

Avo Mk8 · Jun 16, 2023

rewireIT said:
PPS the controller is not a stat, it's just on/off. Timer/temp etc is built onto the boiler.

That Honeywell R6660D is a wireless receiver, e.g. for a stat, intended to monitor room temp. Do you have the HCW80 or equivalent that goes with it?

I am puzzled by the 50V, but I'm afraid still a bit unsure exactly what you are measuring!
I guess the terminals in question (despite 2 being labelled 230V out) may be a control circuit, not necessarily directly connected to the 230V that's on the L terminal at the bottom.

If you are measuring terminal 2 wrt ground, I would expect 230V, given the label on the boiler, but if it's not that, it may be due to the source impedance of that voltage - though that seems unlikely given the 200k impedance of your probe.
Terminal 1 might assume any old voltage wrt ground with the R6660 off, as it's an input, and without the circuit diagram of the boiler, can't really determine.
If the boiler is working correctly, I think in the absence of a circuit diagram, you have to assume that terminals 1 and 2 are part of a separate control circuit not necessarily directly connected to the incoming mains, and be content that the voltages 'measured' don't indicate a problem!

DefyG said:
Not if G/Y have been used for 'Live' conductors, therefore omitting earth connections and within cables.

The Honeywell R6660 is ClassII device and has no provision for an earth, so you might argue there's no safety issue other that the failure to sleeve this one cable etc. etc.?

davesparks · Jun 16, 2023

rewireIT said:
L to N is coming up 50v on the stick. It's the version that is just 'prod and play', without the button.

Measure it to earth and also neutral to earth and post the results.

Does this all work correctly and as expected, or is something not working?

rewireIT · Jun 16, 2023

littlespark said:
Is there a fault with the heating, or are you just worried about the workmanship?

Nah was just having a look inside out of interest, boiler works perfectly - i just click the controller on and the boiler comes on, click it off for off.

Avo Mk8 said:
That Honeywell R6660D is a wireless receiver, e.g. for a stat, intended to monitor room temp. Do you have the HCW80 or equivalent that goes with it?

It's supposed to be wireless? No other equipment i'm afraid, just that and the boiler. I was gonna get a smarter thermostat but can't justify a couple of hundred quid to do what i can simply do manually.

Avo Mk8 said:
I am puzzled by the 50V, but I'm afraid still a bit unsure exactly what you are measuring!

When i just stick one pin of the voltmeter into the black i sometimes get 50v AC. On second thought it could just be the voltmeter showing that as part of showing an AC current since i wasn't measuring across more than one wire.

Avo Mk8 said:
If the boiler is working correctly, I think in the absence of a circuit diagram, you have to assume that terminals 1 and 2 are part of a separate control circuit not necessarily directly connected to the incoming mains, and be content that the voltages 'measured' don't indicate a problem!

I don't think there's a problem i'm just trying to work out in my head how the circuit works - who said house bashing was easy!

Avo Mk8 said:
The Honeywell R6660 is ClassII device and has no provision for an earth, so you might argue there's no safety issue other that the failure to sleeve this one cable etc. etc.?

Yep class II so no earth needed. Still poor imo to take the earth there as a live. Even some brown tape or anything woulda been better than just doing that.

davesparks · Jun 16, 2023

rewireIT said:
Nah was just having a look inside out of interest, boiler works perfectly - i just click the controller on and the boiler comes on, click it off for off.

Disconnect it from the boiler terminals and see if this voltage remains at the boiler terminals.

rewireIT said:
When i just stick one pin of the voltmeter into the black i sometimes get 50v AC.

Then there's probably something up with your tester if it is displaying a voltage when only one probe is connected to something. You can't measure a voltage at a single point, it is always a measurement between two points.

rewireIT said:
On second thought it could just be the voltmeter showing that as part of showing an AC current since i wasn't measuring across more than one wire.

A voltmeter does not show current, it measures a potential difference in Volts. An Ammeter measures a current in Amps

rewireIT said:
I don't think there's a problem i'm just trying to work out in my head how the circuit works - who said house bashing was easy!

The circuit is a simple switch, a thermostat is just a switch which is operated by a change in temperature. When the temperature is lower than the set temperature the thermostat switches on and connects the two control terminals of the boiler together.
In your case the thermostat also has a permanent live and neutral supply to power it's electronics.

Domestic circuits, including heating controls, are at the relatively easy end of the spectrum.
Domestic installation work, or at least good work, is a skillset in its own right and can be hard as anything else.

Avo Mk8 · Jun 16, 2023

rewireIT said:
It's supposed to be wireless? No other equipment i'm afraid, just that and the boiler. I was gonna get a smarter thermostat but can't justify a couple of hundred quid to do what i can simply do manually.

What you have is a wireless receiver, and back in the day would likely have had the HCW80 room stat paired to it somewhere in the house. Pic below in case you've seen that on the wall somewhere. It's battery powered.
It's been superseded by newer designs now, but you might pick one up on Ebay if you ever felt like it. It would need to be the old model to be able to pair it with your receiver.

The general view seems to be to replace with newer version if you need it, eg:

Honeywell RF thermostat

Sorry if this is in the wrong section, can an admin please move it if necessary. My multi fuel room heater/boiler has a Honeywell HCW80 thermostat paired to a R6660D receiver. I'm beginning to think the HCW80 is faulty. It had lost it's pairing with the receiver due to dead batteries over the...

www.plumbersforums.net

MJPD29 · Jun 17, 2023

Voltage stick is as good as a chocolate fireguard, you need to measure it with a proper meter. Using g/y as anything other than earth does not comply with regulation and I’d advise you to get it fixed. Also, 50v is voltage, not amperage.

brianmoooore · Jun 17, 2023

MJPD29 said:
Using g/y as anything other than earth does not comply with regulation

Bad practice at any time, but not actually contravening regs until the recent amendment, as long as it was sleeved with a 'live' colour at each end, (which this one isn't.)

Avo Mk8 · Jun 17, 2023

MJPD29 said:
Voltage stick is as good as a chocolate fireguard, you need to measure it with a proper meter.

To be fair to the OP (see post #7) he is using a Fluke voltage tester, a lot more use than a chocolate fireguard.
It's not a 'proper meter', but safer as a basic tester than a cheap multimeter!

Electrical Tester | Fluke T90 Voltage and Continuity Electrical Tester | Fluke

Fluke T90 Two-pole Voltage and Continuity Electrical Tester. This voltage tester is the basic tool you need to check voltage presence. Slim design and fast answers available anywhere

www.fluke.com

rewireIT · Jun 17, 2023

Avo Mk8 said:
To be fair to the OP (see post #7) he is using a Fluke voltage tester, a lot more use than a chocolate fireguard.
It's not a 'proper meter', but safer as a basic tester than a cheap multimeter!

Electrical Tester | Fluke T90 Voltage and Continuity Electrical Tester | Fluke

Fluke T90 Two-pole Voltage and Continuity Electrical Tester. This voltage tester is the basic tool you need to check voltage presence. Slim design and fast answers available anywhere

www.fluke.com

To be fair to me, i was using it to test whether the power was off, so basically using it for what it's made for. Just noticed it was giving voltage on what should be the switch live.

I also accidentally called it current above - i don't know what else to call AC but it flashes up AC when voltage is detected. I figured since it's 50v AC i could call it 'AC current' since AC is alternating current. Is there some other terminology i should be using?

MJPD29 · Jun 17, 2023

Avo Mk8 said:
To be fair to the OP (see post #7) he is using a Fluke voltage tester, a lot more use than a chocolate fireguard.
It's not a 'proper meter', but safer as a basic tester than a cheap multimeter!

Electrical Tester | Fluke T90 Voltage and Continuity Electrical Tester | Fluke

Fluke T90 Two-pole Voltage and Continuity Electrical Tester. This voltage tester is the basic tool you need to check voltage presence. Slim design and fast answers available anywhere

www.fluke.com

My apologies, thought it was a non contact volt stick. I won’t admit I was wrong because I’m too stubborn, I just wasn’t totally right.

rewireIT · Jun 17, 2023

MJPD29 said:
My apologies, thought it was a non contact volt stick. I won’t admit I was wrong because I’m too stubborn, I just wasn’t totally right.

Oh no i learned very early on to basically shove that to the bottom of the bag and forget about it.

oscar21 · Jun 17, 2023

brianmoooore said:
Bad practice at any time, but not actually contravening regs until the recent amendment, as long as it was sleeved with a 'live' colour at each end, (which this one isn't.)

Which new reg is that and how are you supposed to know about them unless you read all 6000 pages of wafle

loz2754 · Jun 18, 2023

oscar21 said:
Which new reg is that and how are you supposed to know about them unless you read all 6000 pages of wafle

As a practising electrician, you should make it your business to be aware of any changes in the regulations, which are not waffle, but are designed to improve the safety of electrical installations. There are update courses, and numerous YouTube videos outlining the changes.

davesparks · Jun 18, 2023

oscar21 said:
Which new reg is that and how are you supposed to know about them unless you read all 6000 pages of wafle

You are supposed to know by keeping yourself up to date with changes to the regulations, laws, developments in technology and scientific advances.

DefyG · Jun 18, 2023

oscar21 said:
Which new reg is that and how are you supposed to know about them unless you read all 6000 pages of wafle

Looks like Ive been short changed as there only about 600 in my copy!

rewireIT · Jun 18, 2023

I read my copy to the kids of a night time, gets them off to bobies nice and quick

DPG · Jun 18, 2023

oscar21 said:
Which new reg is that and how are you supposed to know about them unless you read all 6000 pages of wafle

If you don't keep up with changes then you will likely end up doing some things that are not compliant. Surely it's part of being a professional electrician.

brianmoooore · Jun 18, 2023

DPG said:
Surely it's part if being a professional electrician.

Exactly this. An integral part of the job.

pirate · Jun 18, 2023

Just a wee comment here...I have the Fluke T150 and if you probe with the one probe only it warns you of voltage being present, albeit it can't display what that voltage is. So it acts like a non-contact tester, except you have to make contact! Basically it's just a warning.

DPG · Jun 18, 2023

pirate said:
Just a wee comment here...I have the Fluke T150 and if you probe with the one probe only it warns you of voltage being present, albeit it can't display what that voltage is. So it acts like a non-contact tester, except you have to make contact! Basically it's just a warning.

Same as the Kewtech 2 probe tester. I'm never sure it's a good feature - I wonder how many people use it for proving safe isolation.

pirate · Jun 18, 2023

That's a fair point, @DPG
However, it's maybe handy to have the feature as an extra check, just in case!

oscar21 · Jun 18, 2023

DefyG said:
Looks like Ive been short changed as there only about 600 in my copy!

Meant to put 600

oscar21 · Jun 18, 2023

brianmoooore said:
Exactly this. An integral part of the job.

No its being a nerd, most of the modern changes are ludicrous and we shouldn't need to know about them in a modern world. Saying that using the earth to carry current in a multi core flex is dangerous must be saying it was always dangerous, so how come they used to allow it? and if its not dangerous what does it matter whether I know about it or not.

Anyway I have done an update course and nearly all of the questions were irrelevant waffle, how long can a gangplank be for eg or what sort of ship needs what sort of cable or whatever it was. The new regulations are going nuts on the amount of things they keep altering, take sockets from a bath for eg, was 3M, everyone knew it was 3M then all of a sudden its 2.5M, no sense whatsoever. Now we don't even need to know the RCD x5 current yet it was vital a couple of years ago and if any old timer spark working from say the 15th or even 16 edition read the modern regs they would say they were insane.

You must be able to see they keep changing everything to flog us new books, that it. Its nothing to do with safety or efficiency.

loz2754 · Jun 18, 2023

Of course there is an element of commercial gain behind many of the technological advances being made available in the electrical world, even greed perhaps.
But to argue that there is no improvement in safety from one edition to the next is ludicrous. It's not always obvious why a particular regulation or group of regulations has been modified, introduced, or sometimes removed, there are good reasons behind such changes.

rewireIT · Jun 18, 2023

^ i'm a bit with both of you on this one.

There are differences between countries in regs which both argue that they are for safety but both cannot be right at the same time. Electricity is electricity no matter location or colour jacket it has on.

It's the argument i make when someone says i'm being dangerous for driving at 80mph on an empty motorway. It's 'dangerous' here but completely acceptable in Germany. So are the German law makers playing with the lives of motorists? No. It's just a rule difference.

Same thing - plastic boards are A-OK in Europe but not here, even though they were.

That said, it doesn't take a lot to be up to date with what is currently required regs-wise.

brianmoooore · Jun 18, 2023

It could be argued that knowing the number of each and every reg off by heart is being a nerd, but knowing the content is essential to be able to install and certify your own work as satisfactory.
TBH, it was only when the reg regarding the use of yellow/green in flexes was changed that I discovered it hadn't been allowed before.

davesparks · Jun 19, 2023

oscar21 said:
No its being a nerd, most of the modern changes are ludicrous and we shouldn't need to know about them in a modern world.

Which changes are ludicrous? Why shouldn't we need to know about changes to the regulations?

The regulations change as our knowledge, understanding and technology changes. The regulations have to keep up with the latest changes to technology and those changes are coming thick and fast so the regulations have to keep up.

oscar21 said:
Saying that using the earth to carry current in a multi core flex is dangerous must be saying it was always dangerous, so how come they used to allow it? and if its not dangerous what does it matter whether I know about it or not.

Nobody has said it is dangerous, the regulations have gone back to prohibiting it.

oscar21 said:
take sockets from a bath for eg, was 3M, everyone knew it was 3M then all of a sudden its 2.5M, no sense whatsoever.

This is likely a result of the slow process of moving towards international harmonisation of electrical standards.

oscar21 said:
Now we don't even need to know the RCD x5 current yet it was vital a couple of years ago

I assume you mean tripping time, not current?
We can still do the test, the change is just simplifying the test results sheet.

oscar21 said:
and if any old timer spark working from say the 15th or even 16 edition read the modern regs they would say they were insane.

oscar21 said:
You must be able to see they keep changing everything to flog us new books, that it. Its nothing to do with safety or efficiency.

If you don't like it then do a different job.

oscar21 · Jun 19, 2023

^^Davesparks

The difference is, you still have faith. Some people love rules, they love complying with everything anyone tells them to do because they think they are doing for the greater good and they must do as they are told because a superior person told them to. I'll bet you followed every lockdown rule going when the pandemic struck.

People like me on the other hand think that as long as you don't do any harm to anyone, murder them, rob them etc then nothing else really matters too much, I see everyone else as equals not my superiors. Take the wiring to the boiler scenario, I need to wire a thermostat receiver, its made of plastic and only needs three wires so I use a bit of 3 core flex and sleeve the earth up with brown. So what if the regs don't allow it, you are free human being and are capable all by yourself to make a decision whether it might be safe or not, so what if it breaches a technical rule in the £90 book.

What experience has taught me is no-one else is interested either, you could do the best job in the world for someone, you could go out of your way and do things like put ferules on the end of every termination, make an artwork of all the cable you clip, fit the most expensive stuff going and whilst you are doing the job the client will treat you like family but when it comes time to price the next job for him if you are £500 dearer than a complete stranger, even on a £10k job they will get it and not you, everything you have done would have been a waste of time.

As for getting another job just because I dont behave like a bod and follow every single rule to the letter, no chance, all my work is safe and no-one will ever come to any danger, there are a load of people out there doing way worse jobs than me. That last job I posted on the trade pictures one was an abomination, done by someone in NICEIC apparently who makes his money by signing several jobs off every day for other people at £100 a pop so I'm told. And the money is too good.

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