Urgent help needed.

elsien

I don’t even know how to find the drainage valve.
I just want to know that my house will be as safe as it can be while I’m away.

kipsterno1

With only three hours I would look at option B. Would your travel insurance cover you if you had to cancel due to this?

elsien

I can’t cancel.

elsien

would this be it? It looks a bit solid. It’s in the kitchen.

Grumpy_chap

That looks like a drain valve. You often have them at low points in the system, so bottom of radiators.

Isolate the water fill.

Connect a hose to the drain valve and drain it outside.

Open the valve.

The valve may break if it is has not been used for a long time and seized but, so long as you can drain the system down and not refill until attended by a plumber, fixing that valve as part of the job should be tolerable.

Hope you can get this done and have a good trip.

Ayr_Rage

All of my radiators have drain valves like this and this is what you are looking for on a downstairs radiator or elsewhere at a low point.

It will open with a normal radiator bleed key, attach a hose to run outside if possible otherwise it's multiple buckets or pans.

You may need to open a bleed valve upstairs to let air in as the water drains out.

You'll need to shut the boiler down and turn off your water at the main incoming valve.

Section62

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81885349#Comment_81885349

Yes, and often there is one in the hallway if you have a radiator there.

If the leak is at first floor level then you only need to lower the water level below that, you don't need to drain every drop of water from the system. So any one of the downstairs drain points would do.

Once you start draining you may want to open the air vents on the upstairs radiators to speed things up and make sure they fully drain.

If you've turned the mains water off and drained most of the water from the central heating then I wouldn't worry too much about heating the house while you are away, unless you live in a very cold part of the country. The risk of frost damage needs to be balanced against an electric heater starting a fire, and the risk and consequences of frost damage should be fairly low, given you've already got a leak which needs fixing.

twopenny

And when you've done that then book 2 more weeks plus in Barcelona till it warms up here 😉

elsien

that drainage valve isn’t shifting and I really don’t want to be buggering everything up even more. I’ve got someone who can come and empty buckets, so that’s a start.
I’ve isolated the light which the water has been running down. Should I turn all the electric off to be on the safe side or would it be okay to leave the socket on do you think? Thinking about my freezer, but I can chuck everything in it away if necessary.

WIAWSNB

Hi Elsien.

Sorry for slow response. I hope you have a little time to still sort this.

You have turned off the mains stopcock - good.

Your boiler pic didn't show the isolating valves I was after, but hopefully the pic below is the same layout.

Do you have a large flat-bladed screwdriver or small adjustable spanner?

Ok. Power supply to the boiler OFF - that's the wall switch. Make sure the boiler is deed. Turn off its front controls too.

Turn the two yellow arrowed valves fully through 90o - they may only turn one way, but get the 'slots' at right-angles to the fitting. These yellow valves are the flow and return to the radiators, so the pressure held in the boiler will now be removed, and the leak should dramatically slow down and even stop.

The blue valve is the cold mains inlet, but if you have turned off your mains stopcock, then you don't need to touch this.

Finally, choose a radiator on the floor the leak is on, and 'bleed' that radiator until the water stops shooting out, then re-close it. Your rad system is no longer under pressure, and can only release water through that leak by also allowing air back in, which it can only do very slowly indeed. Almost certainly the leak will stop or near-stop, but obviously no guarantee.

You should be ok just shutting off the breaker that supplies that lighting circuit. The person visiting may want power on for other reasons - and your freezer can keep running.

All the best - I hope you manage this. If not, can you tell your visitor to try this?