Central Heating Issue In New House

martin1t

Good Morning Everyone,

I have recently bought my first house and have been carrying out 3 months of renovations which has seen the boiler and central heating switched off for the duration and two radiators removed and replaced (both of which are working ok)

Before the renovation work started the heating system was working as I remember going into the house after collecting our keys in late July and being met with a mini heatwave! :rotfl:

Upon firing up the system last week I have noticed that out of the 9 radiators in the house, only 4 are heating up properly, the remaining ones are stone cold. :huh:

I have gone around the radiators and bled them all with one spitting out a small amount of sludge and a few others releasing some air. I have topped up the boiler to the required 1 - 1.5 bar pressure and still have had no joy in getting the other radiators to spring back to life.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!:T

sk240

Check that the valves are full yopen on the radiators, you may need to balance them all to get the water through efficiently.
starting with the nearest radiator to the boiler, open the thermostatic valve fully, and close off the lockshiled valve until the oultley pipe is noticably cooler than the inlet pipe (the nearest radiator will almost be fully closed) and as you get further from the boiler a bit more open each time. (this is not a quick process).
This should hopefully mean that the water will be forced through the others more evenly.
If this doesnt work then you may have a blockage somewhere

Mr_Ted

Possible sludge problem as sludge if in the system will solidify if the system is off for a period of time, and usually in the low spots of the system as it settles, and these in radiators can be where pipework inlets and outlets are.

Other possibility is system requires balancing.

It MAY over time clear, try putting the boiler thermostat to maximum to give heat a chance to effect it if its not to badly sludged, but the system needs a clean I would suggest

southcoastrgi

could be the pins are stuck on the trv's (if you have them & they have been shut off)

martin1t

Arming myself with a spanner to adjust the valves this evening

Trying anything to avoid calling out an engineer

Myser

If you make any adjustments to the lockshield valves, the system will need to be balanced again.

ValHaller

southcoastrgi wrote: »

could be the pins are stuck on the trv's (if you have them & they have been shut off)

Try this ^^^^ first before playing with balance of system, particularly if you are sure that any of the rads in question were actually working in the summer

MonsieurFrugal

One of my rads did this it was a stuck pin on the trv, a light tap with a tool sorted it

keystone

If you do feel a burning desire to play with the lockshield valves then remember - no don't write it down exactly how many turns each takes to either get fro the position it is currently at until either fuly closed or fully open. Then when you have finished its a simple case of returning them to the initial position. That will give you a rough balance - it needs doing again properly afterwards. But do other things first as already advised.

Cheers