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Like many in the north of Scotland, our power was off Sun-Wed. Now that it's back on and the heating has fired up again, two rads that are back to back are still cold.
Small cottage with oil heating, system installed just under 4 years ago. A few months I noticed the same two, furthest from the boiler, were cold but managed to get them going after weeks of getting the balancing right. I haven't touched any valves on any of the rads. Not a bleed issue, checked that. Boiler pressure is fine.
Now, I'd expect them to be the last to heat up but surely after 24hrs something is up?
Any suggestions? The funny thing is that during the power outage, this end of the house was warm as we had the fire going, now it's the cold end!
Thanks!
I know little of heating systems but isnt an electrical pump needed to pump the hot water through the radiators ?. Could that have either burnt out,not switched on as in reset, if reset is something it needs to do, or even perhaps need primed.
Potential probs listed here
Problem 3, airlock
https://heatingforce.co.uk/blog/central-heating-pump-problems/
Cheers dyna-ti, I know little also!
The pump isn't indicating a fault so I'll either have to get someone out or kick it and swear at it until it behaves.
Some of the solutions in that link look a possible. I know you can bleed radiators, but didnt know you could bleed the pump too.
That said, if the pump while switched on doesn't feel to the touch that its moving,that might indicate its completely non functional, but I'd look to trying all the possible solutions listed before calling in the heating engineer.
If you can save yourself a couple of hundred quid, its worth it for that.
I'd also look at maybe buying a replacement yourself, before calling in any engineer. They seem to range in price from 60, 70 quid to a few hundred, but if the engineer has to supply it also, you might find there's a premium on that.
if the pump while switched on doesn’t feel to the touch that its moving,that might indicate its completely non functional
I'd suspect some sort of airlock. It won't be the pump if some of the other radiators are warm, and also if the pump's not running the boiler will overtemp in about 10 seconds and trip.
Try turning up the speed on the pump if you can. You could also turn off all radiators except the cold 2 to make sure max flow is available and see if that moves anything along.
You could also turn off all radiators except the cold 2 to make sure max flow is available and see if that moves anything along.
This would be my first step.
TRVs on either of them that may have stuck or been fiddled with? Found our living room rad turned right down recently, explained why it was cold, no one admitted doing it.
Could be the valve pin has got stuck. Turn the TRV to max, you can then unscrew and remove the control knob. There will be a pin that should be protruding by a good few mm. if not you can pull the pin up with pliers. If unsure if the pin is fully up take a valve off a working radiator and see how much pin is visible as a reference.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. We're in a rental so won't be us taking the bill for a call-out but a DIY fix is much quicker.
Overnight, I had turned all the warm rads off at the TRV and wound the lock shield valves all the way in. Now all the rads are stone cold haha!
All you needed to do was close the TRVs..... unless you know how open each lockshield was then the radiator balance might be out of whack when you reopen them.
You shouldn't have closed the lock-shields, they are all graduated to ensure even flow of water. Either read up on how to reset them, or let the landlord pay for a plumber to fix the two cold rads and ask him to rebalance the system.
[I]Found our living room rad turned right down recently, explained why it was cold, no one admitted doing it[\i]
They are not there for decoration, we are always adjusting ours depending on if we are working from home or have visitors and using rooms differently. Stops them sticking too. If it's cold, we get up and check the TRV is on.
and wound the lock shield valves all the way in
Oh.
You shouldn’t have closed the lock-shields, they are all graduated to ensure even flow of water.
Not that hard to figure it all out.
Unscrew them all to max when the system is cold and then turn CH on. Run round and figure out if one radiator is getting hotter much quicker than the rest. If you find one that is hotter, screw the lock shield in half way as a first guess. Basically repeat this process each time the CH comes on until you have them all heating up at the same rate. If the same rad is still getting hot first, turn it fully off then open it say one turn and see how that works.
For a small flat it make make no difference at all, for a larger house you'll have a few rads on a longer run of pipework which are shorted out by rads nearer the boiler, which need closing off until they all appear to have the same resistance.
You can use a IR thermometer to measure the in/out temp on each rad to finely balance the system, but that's getting a bit anal....
and wound the lock shield valves all the way in
Gonna stop doing that please.
[i]Not that hard to figure it all out, Unscrew them all to max[/i]
Not hard once you understand the principle, but it helps if you know what order the rads are plumbed, and then I started off with the furthest rads full open and the closest rads 3/4 closed for a whole lot less running around the house!