Upstairs radiators coming on when heating turned off?

JodyBPM

As the title says really!
We have an ancient Baxi back boiler, and a hot water tank in the airing cupboard upstairs. Went down stairs to tear my husband off a strip for putting the heating on as I woke up sweltering only to find that although 2 rads upstairs were hot, the heating was turned off, downstairs rads still cold. HW would have been
on for half an
hour set on
timer. To add to this, 2 of the 4 upstairs rads don't appear to be working at all, DH has checked the pins in the valves, which seem to be bobbing fine?
Does the system just need balancing? It's quite possible that the valves could have been turned over the summer by my DS who is a compulsive fiddler!

EliteHeat

Do a search for "reverse circulation" for more information.

JodyBPM

Thanks EliteHeat, I've have done a google, and agree that "reverse circulation" appears to be what is happening, but most of the things i read seem to suggest that this is due to the layout of the system, and obviously our system hasn't changed in probably 40 years (seriously, absolutely ancient!) so not sure why this would suddenly start happening. DH uncovered something about a valve on the HW tank that prevents this, so I guess this could have failed? I'm also confused about the two upstairs rads not working, the reason I think this might be due to DS fiddling is because they are in DS room and DD room , the two rooms he plays in, and I've seen him before, turning the radiator knobs (he's only 3!) Think DH is going to open up the valves again tonight, and see if he can sort anything out - anything he should be looking for?

EliteHeat

It's not possible to say without seeing your system. It could be reverse circulation, it could be a motorised valve letting by, it could be sludge or dirt causing circulation to go awry.

JodyBPM

Right, I've sent myself off upstairs, and have managed to "fix" one of the two non working radiators (by bobbing the pin and loosening up the on off switch, so nothing rocket science, which makes me wonder why DH couldn't do it on one of his attempts but ho hum!)

The radiator that doesn't work still is the one that's in the room where the hot water tank is in the cupboard. I have a feeling that if this rad was working that it would solve the reverse circulation problem. In previous years, it was this radiator which would occasionally get slightly warm when hot water was on, so its probably not a case of "solving the reverse circulation" more directing it to what we're used to! DH did bleed this radiator and it was full of air, as part of his trying to fix it a few weeks back, so maybe the reason it only got slightly warm was that it was in need of bleeding?

Anyone got any ideas I could try, simple ones, as I really don't know what I'm doing and clearly DH doesn't either. Is it time to call the heating engineer?

jitters

JodyBPM wrote: »

Right, I've sent myself off upstairs, and have managed to "fix" one of the two non working radiators (by bobbing the pin and loosening up the on off switch, so nothing rocket science, which makes me wonder why DH couldn't do it on one of his attempts but ho hum!)

It's OK, your DH must've loosened it for you

I'm not too sure about the fundamentals of back boilers and how they work but perhaps the water pressure is now low in the system as you've let all that air out and you need to refill the loop?

If you end up getting an engineer it might be useful to look at Martin's "Boiler/Central Heating Cover" article to see if you would benefit from it?

Hope you get it sorted soon.