Simple question really - is there a way to manually turn on the heating on my Worcester Greenstar 25i? The Heat Link for the Google Nest decided to fail today, and after going through the various trouble shooting steps and calling up Google, the conclusion appears to be (according to them) that the Heat Link needs replaced. Obviously they don't just sell replacement links; instead I'll have to fork out £220 for a new Nest as well as hiring somebody to install it. Until then it would be handy if my heating worked, seeing as it's autumn. I've checked through the user guide but it seems to basically just say "use a thermostat"; is there a way to turn on the heating that doesn't involve linking to a thermostat?
I may be able to offer a solution to this, but first, can you tell me if you have a hot water cylinder or not? If you do, have a look at the pipework located around the hot water cylinder and see if you can see one or two silver metal or white plastic boxes attached to a point where the pipes meet at a joint. This box or boxes are about the same size of a pack of butter and will have a single electrical cable running out of them. If you can locate one or two of these boxes, look closely and you will see a little lever poking out of the side. This lever will be sitting in a hockey stick shaped groove. If you slide this lever slowly and gently (it feels spring loaded) along the groove and then push it sideways so it latches into the step at the end of the groove it will be prevented from springing back into its original position. Locking this latch will trick the boiler into firing up and start heating up. It will remain heating all of the time until you release it from the locked position. If you have two boxes, one will operate the heating , the other will operate the hot water.