In my new French apartment and trying to figure things out. Does anyone know if I have the valves in the on position on this water tank? Thanks
It’s difficult to tell from that photo but the convention is that the valve is open when the handle is in line with the pipework. In your photo, the blue valve looks as if it’s open, but I can’t tell which pipe the red valve is on …
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Are you getting water coming out of the hot tap (at a similar rate to the cold)? If so, then it’s open, if not, then it’s closed.
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It looks like the upper red valve is closed. (But not easy to tell from photo).
Does that help - I’ve moved the red valve the opposite way now so might need to wait another six hours to see if that works !
Previously the water did get lukewarm so i suspect it’s not working and likely needs replacing 
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We’re having lots of fun and games trying to work out the water heater and the oil boiler as currently only one radiator is getting hot. Luckily the apartment isn’t too cold considering it’s been snowing outside !
In that photo, it looks as if flow between the bottom of the cylinder and the horizontal pipe leading to the right is now cut off. If you were able to move the valve without a huge amount of force the valve itself is probably ok.
That could be caused by many things but I think failed thermostats or sludge build up would be my guess. Given the state of the system, I’d be inclined to engage a plumber to give the entire system a once-over.
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Try bleeding them and check the pressure too
That red valve in the picture is closed, turn it back to horizontal. The blue one further away is on when it is in line with the pipe, as in your first picture.
You don’t need to wait 6 hours to determine if the valves are correctly positioned. If water flows out of the hot taps at roughly the same rate as the cold then all is well flow wise.
As for how/if it heats up is another matter…
You might need to force it on at the electrical tableau - three position switch showing ‘I’ (on), Auto, & ‘0’ (off). If you force it to ‘I’ (on) prior to the Heures Creuses (cheap rate power) period it should flip back to Auto once HC starts but will continue to heat until the thermostat stops it, or at the end of the HP period, whichever comes first.
The above has got nothing to do with any radiators, just domestic hot water (eau chaude sanitaire, or ECS).
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thanks everyone for the replies! oddly the water tank heated up on our last day so we think it may be linked to a thermostatic timer which we couldn’t work out! We’re back in the UK now but i’ve sourced the manual online and printed it out so hopefully I can work it out!
On the plus side I took the plunge on our final day and removed the TRV’s on the radiators and discovered stuck pins on all of them, managed to release them and got them all working apart from the final one in the run so may need to try balancing them when we go back for Xmas!
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