Inefficient Radiators - advice please!

Firemunchkin

Hi everyone,

We bought a house in August 2013 and we have had the boiler serviced and assessed. Apparently it is running at about 80% efficient.

However, the radiators upstairs are boiling hot and the radiators downstairs (in particular, the one in the kitchen/dining room) is barely warm.

We have tried to adjust the radiators using the dials on the bottom side of each, but they don't seem to change at all. We've tried bleeding them but nothing comes out.

I am concerned that there is something wrong which needs fixing - possibly the dials are broken (the pin has come out?) or the radiators are clogged up with gunk which needs professional cleaning out (in the case of the cold radiator?).

The problem we have is that upstairs is always boiling hot and downstairs is freezing cold. It's not terribly efficient! It doesn't help that we don't have double-glazing but even when touching the radiator downstairs in the kitchen/dining room it's not really warm so we have virtually nothing to counteract the cold weather in that room.

Are there any thoughts/ideas floating around which might help in our diagnosis? I would like to avoid having to hire a plumber!

Thanks all

saveallmymoney

Sounds like your radiators just need balancing, this would be less of a problem if you had thermostatic valves so it sounds like you don't.

It would be worthwhile to get thermostatic valves fitted, first thing i did when i moved into my house.

bsod

barely warm can be normal on a working trv if the room is the right temp.

bleeding nothing came out? nothing being no air, no water or no nothing. where is it warm, top, bottom, pipes?

if it's completely cold, take the heads of the trv's, it just unscrews revealing the plunger, if it's still cold open up the the lockshield valve fully on the other side half a turn at a time, and make sure it is bled beforehand

if you have trv's upstairs, and the rooms are too hot, turn them down