Central Heating Query

toby_puppy

Hi

My mums central heating controls are in the airing cupboard upstairs. When she switched it on this morning there was a whining and vibrating sound coming from there.

The boiler is situated in the kitchen downstairs. There were no noises coming from the boiler, the boiler is only 3 years old, worcester. It's not a combi. The radiators in the upstairs bedrooms came on as notmal and the water in the taps is heating up OK but the downstairs radiators were not even lukewarm, just a very faint hint of heat.

Left heating on for half hour and still no warmer downstairs. The noise reduced after 15 minutes to a point where you couldnt hear it as much. Then she switched it off as she was too worried to leave it on.

Any ideas what could be happening. Would it be safe to put it back on. Don't really want to call a plumber out if it's something thats not serious.

ps the hot water intitially looked brown when she put tap on but the cold water was ok. (only brown for a few seconds) and the toilet was brown water too. but the hot water went clear again after a few seconds.
Its minus 10 here.

gas4you

Without knowing your boiler model it is very hard to say, but a complete guess would be that your pump is in the airing cupboard and it was this making the noise.

If so you will need a new pump more than likely.

DVardysShadow

As the upstairs radiators did come on, there may be some kind of divertor valve in place or this may be an installation with 2 pumps. In either case, the bits for downstairs are not working. If it is the pump, then find it [turn the system on and listen - the noise is a clue] tapping it witha mallet may get it going.

A general point. We seem to be getting lots of people here now with broken heating - which is not a surprise. But many of them don't appear to know how their system works. Given the almost infinite variety of combinations of combi or standard boilers, flue arangements, timers, pumps, divertor valves, thermostatic valves, room stats, timed room stats, frost stats etc, it is a big ask of strangers on a forum to diagnose and advise on heating faults - and it is worse when there is the pressure of the fact that it does not work.

Can I suggest to everyone reading whose heating is working, that if you don't know how your system works, you at least find out every major component and get yourself an idea of what they do in the system.

shaven-monkey

Noise may be caused by pump failure of some sort. The upper floor radiators getting warm while lower ones staying cold is usually a sign of a dead pump although pump is usually located in the boiler itself so could be a dual pump system as the noise is coming from airing cupboard. Could be some sort of airlock formed in the pipes due to the cold. As the boiler itself is less than 3 years old I would guess it has a safety cutoff to prevent anything too nasty happening. Should be safe to run it. Check the pressure reading on the central heating circuit (should be a dial in the boiler).

Brown water coming out of the hot water tap is ... probably bad. Brown water in the toilet cistern as well likely means some slight / one off contamination in the water supply in or to the house. If there's a header tank in the loft it would be worth giving it a quick look to see if anything has fallen into it.

If on a water meter check the reading to see if there's water being supplied without your use, would indicate an internal leak.
Check any water pipes in areas that usually go without heat like garage and loft to make sure they're not burst.