Radiators not warming up any ideas??

misseypootle

Hi
we have some radiators in the house that are red hot and a couple of the others that are warm at the top and stone cold at the bottom. My hubby has bled them all and even taken the three off and flushed them out with a hose and they are clear. Think it could possibly be the pump but we can hear it working so not sure. If the pump wasnt working would this mean that some radiators nearest the boiler would get hotter due to gravity and the ones furthest away are cold.

Any suggestions would be very welcome :beer: as we are sratching our heads a bit now. Dont want to buy a new pump if its not that.

ariba10

Try turning off the hot ones and see what happens.

If the cold ones then warm up it will be a matter of balancing the system.

Not a difficult job.

misseypootle

thanks will try that

vendee_2

Hi, I had the same problem a couple of weeks ago! 2 radiators working (the ones nearest the boiler) and the others luke warm or cold...tried the usual bleeding etc with no joy. Then remembered we had breakdown cover for our heating with EON... They came out the following day and confirmed it was my pump.... even though I could hear it working?? New pump fitted in 15mins and lovely hot radiators now

gerad_way

How do you balance the system. I have a combi boiler and have 1 radiator which won't heat up, have bled them etc but still cold.

misseypootle

ariba10 wrote: »

Try turning off the hot ones and see what happens.

If the cold ones then warm up it will be a matter of balancing the system.

Not a difficult job.

Turned them off and it made no difference to the others they were still cold. Could it be the pump then?

Volcano

Bumped as I'd like to know too.

moob_2

I'd check to see if the thermostatic valve on the radiator is stuck. You remove the coupling (usually with your hand) unscrew and see if the metal pin that sticks up can be pushed down easily - it should then pop straight back up.

If not, give it a tap with a hammer - then replace.

See if that helps.

If it doesn't - try opening the lockshield valve on the opposite side - this controls the flow of water to the radiator.

Another thing is that they could be full of sludge - if that's the case, quite often a hose flush doesn't clear them 100% - you will need to add some radiator flush to the system - follow the instructions on the bottle, then add inhibitor.

swiftymorgan

turn them all off then open 1 of the bad ones slightly and wait to see if it starts to heat up then gradually open it up if it does, and then do each one slowly.failing that if there was sludge in system which your other half would know as he flushed the rads it may have blocked the pump up, so check by adjusting speed of pump to see if it is working,there is a switch on the side of most pumps to adjust speed.if the rads were sludged up there is a treatment called ds40 that you can buy from B&Q for £25.00 that you can use but bear in mind it will clean out anything and that means if your system has been in for 10 years or more you may get leaks if you are not careful.

mike_the_bike_2

Sentinel x400 is another sludge cleaner that is well known...I've used it by draining my system a bit and then pouring in the F&E tank... The thing that attracted me to using it is that it is a gentle stuff that you can leave in the system for a month!....It won't cause leakes on older systems apparently

latecomer

I also used Sentinel when I drained down our system and it did a reasonable job. I also took all my radiators off and flushed them through with a hose pipe.