Is it worth replacing radiators??

Imp

Can you turn the temperature up on your boiler. You can on our modern one, and at the moment it is cranked right up.

bungle4x4

no, the older rads are a lot thicker steel wise, so therefore hold their heat longer.

i notice the advert for wickes saying there radiator heat up faster, now that just means thinner steel. and conversely, their radiators cool down faster as well.

its a boiler issue, not a rad issue.

SailorSam

If you do replace them be careful when you try and carry them out of the house.
When i replaced a radiator in one of the bedrooms, i thought it was fully drained but when we carried it downstairs at an angle the last of the black gunk came out ............ onto the new carpet.
Make sure you seal them back up before trying to move them.

keystone

kevandkeira wrote: »

The radiators are single except for 1 in our dining room which was recently replaced, this is double & is the only radiator with a thermostat on.

Whats the roomstat setting? If you don't have TRVs are the flow valves on the rads fully open? Don't touch the LSVs just yet. Have you got hot feed and return pipes but only warm rads?

Cheers

keystone

SailorSam wrote: »

If you do replace them be careful when you try and carry them out of the house.
When i replaced a radiator in one of the bedrooms, i thought it was fully drained but when we carried it downstairs at an angle the last of the black gunk came out ............ onto the new carpet.
Make sure you seal them back up before trying to move them.

Lol from a distance - not funny when you have to face it though! The answer is to rotate it 180 degress about the long axis and carry it out upside down.

Cheers

kevandkeira

keystone wrote: »

Whats the roomstat setting? If you don't have TRVs are the flow valves on the rads fully open? Don't touch the LSVs just yet. Have you got hot feed and return pipes but only warm rads?

Cheers

Hi,
Everything is turned up to full that can be, all the radiator valves are open.
The pipes feel slightly hotter than the rads, not much though.

SailorSam

keystone wrote: »

Lol from a distance - not funny when you have to face it though! The answer is to rotate it 180 degress about the long axis and carry it out upside down.

Cheers

I know that now, you learn something new everyday,
and the bruises from making a mess have healed now.
but my tea was given to the dog that night.

keystone

kevandkeira wrote: »

Hi,
Everything is turned up to full that can be, all the radiator valves are open.
The pipes feel slightly hotter than the rads, not much though.

Trouble is this could be any number of things although the most obvious easily addressed have been covered to a certain extent. In addition you could have a circulation problems cause by the circulating pump malfunctioning, you could have sludge in your pipework, you could have a blockage in your primary circuit. Its very difficult to second guess it remotely.

My feeling is that you should get someone in to give the whole system the once over and make some recommendations.

Cheers

dander

well, I've recently replaced a back boiler and old radiators with new boiler and radiators. The old radiators had a big problem with sludge, at least that's what I think it was, and they had entire patches of coldness, rather than just being cooler all over. The cold patches also tended to be working from the bottom up, rather than top down and not responsive to bleeding which makes me think it was sludge rather than anything else. Obviously in the rooms where the radiators barely heated up at all, new rads have made a big difference and in the two biggest rooms, where I used to have two single radiators I now just have one double in each and they absolutely pump heat out - I've had to turn the TRVs down really quite low to stop those rooms overheating. The doubles are surprisingly deep though, so impractical in some places.

However, I was surprised how expensive replacing all the rads came out to be, so if money's tight at the moment, it's not an option I would leap at. I think you should start, as others have said, by having a good service and flush of the system. Get a local chap in though because they are more likely to make the effort to find parts for older boilers, rather than companies like BG who will be very quick to tell you your boiler is not repairable. Once you've got your current system functioning at its full capacity you'll be able to get the best idea of what difference changing the radiators might make.