Central Heating Issue

Mark_84

I have a fairly old boiler in my house. (2 bed terrace) when we moved in we gutted the whole house apart from the central heating system. It was in full working order but we had to drain it to replace a few dodgy valves on a few rads. The plumber who drained it simply turned of the supply to the feed tank and then opened the drain valve, replaced the faulty bits closed the valve and then turned the supply to the feed tank back on.

All seemed fine apart from the main radiator in our living room was cold every other radiator apart from this was fine. This is on a seperate drop as we have concrete floors. I let the plumber know about this and he said he would need to pull a large amount of water through the rad to clear the air block somewhere in the pipe. He took out the little plug from the top of the rad which contains the bleed value and let a lot of water out. After a few litres later and a lot of oiley water over our newly painted walls the radiator finally got warm.

Basically now i get a rushing sound coming from the pipes which i believe is air in the system. This is mainly when the pump is turned on/off. I have bled all rads whilst the system is turned off and can't get any air out ...

The problem i have is the pump is located below the bathroom floor which has now been tiled ... This is either faulty now or soon will be with air in the system. Does anyone have any ideas how to get the air out ?

I have considered two options ...

1) Sign up for heating cover, wait 28 days then log a call stating my pump is making rushing/grinding noises. I belive the cover will incude the cost of taking up the floor and replacing the pump ?
2) Installing a brand new combi boiler as our current one is now over 20 years old. Will this require the pump to be touched ? Our current system contains two pumps and an imersion heater with the boiler located in the kitchen.

I won't get the orginal plumber back as he charges a fortune and ruined half the house in the process and as far as im concered caused the problem !!

Should the system have been drained/refilled with an additive which could have prevented this ?

ormus

if you do decide to get a new combi boiler, they usually come complete as a system package. just need to be plumbed into the existing pipework, and the gas connecting.
the big advantage is that no extra tanks are required and the new pump is inside the unit. so the old pump can stay under the floor, assuming the plumber can bypass it.

EliteHeat

Mark_84 wrote: »

The problem i have is the pump is located below the bathroom floor which has now been tiled ... This is either faulty now or soon will be with air in the system. Does anyone have any ideas how to get the air out ?

This was an unbelievably bad decision. Not only do pumps fail regularly and require replacing, they also need bleeding of the air that will cause your entire heating system to fail if not released. This usually happens when you fill up after draining down, as you have just experienced.

If I were you, I would rip up the floor and get the pump into a serviceable location. You cannot even consider installing a combination boiler until then.

Oh, and it seems a little unfair to blame your problems on the plumber. Did he design and install the system?

silvercar

when we had one cold rad, I was told to turn all the other rads off and leave this one on. the pump then forced the water round the circuit and I was able to bleed that one rad. After which it all worked fine.

May be worth a try before you dig up the floor.