Hello All
Please bear with me this is a bit of a long post.
I bought my first house a couple of years ago. (worst mistake i ever made). Since i got into the house we have had trouble with the central heating. (And 25 other things)
The problem now is half of the bottom floor radiators do not work. These seem to be in a room that was previously a garage and the bottom toilet/shower room.
On the first week i arrived they seemed to be working but then i had no heating what so ever in January.
Hoping for a reasonably priced fix i call a plumber who came three hours late gone 9pm and stayed for 15 minutes and said the programmer was knackered. I asked how much and he said it would be cheaper for me to do it myself. He wrote the model on some paper took £50 and that was that. I followed his advice fitted a new programmer and the problem was still there. I called again but he did not seem interested.
I then had a brain wave, British Gas had and still have a one of boiler repair service. One off cost including parts and labour. I called them and they said it would be £89 pounds up front if it was less than an hour or £169 if it was more than an hour. I agreed to this and they charged me the £169 straight away over the phone and said if it was less than an hour they would refund the rest.
They sent me a British gas engineer out the following day. In a fortnight i had 5 different engineers out. The first one came and replaced the (forgive me if i am wrong) port valve its in a Y configuration. The second guy replaced the motor on top of the port valve. The third guy done the hot water tank thermostat. All leaving scratching their heads. Each time they left i would phone and tell them it was not fixed and i would ask for the money back, to which they would reply i will send another engineer. I was quite happy for them to keep sending guys thinking eventually one would figure it out and fix it.
The fifth British Gas came out done a few things and scratched his head a lot. He said the electrical wiring was funny he said the only way to get the heating working was to turn it on and manually move the port valve and lock it in place by hand. Hooray the heating was back on (sort of). The three radiators down stairs in the garage conversion and shower/toilet would not come on at all.
Then he said the system needs to be flushed which is not covered by the one price one fee. Fair enough and fair play to BG i have had my monies worth out of them and the engineer even sorted out a refund because the problem was not totally fixed.
Then i grabbed a plumber through a friend who said he would do the system flush on the weekend in his own time and i paid him half the price British Gas quoted. He came around 8am and was here till 8pm. He flushed the system which came out black as the ace of spades and ended up a very light brown by the time he had finished. The came the fun all the rads on apart from these three downstairs so i was in the same boat. He then proceeded to replace the central heating pump for a brand new one which he did not charge me for but it made no difference.
Now i replaced a bathroom upstairs the whole bath, sink and toilet and tiled the lot. The old bathroom had a grubby Thermostatic Bar Mixer shower that i took out. I capped the one pipe and turned off the other.
Could this have anything at all to do with the problem?.
I am out of idea's the last plumber earlier this year on a recommendation said replace the boiler and i asked how would that cure the three rads not coming on and he said we would look at that after if the new boiler did not cure the problem and handed me a quote for £2900.
Please bear with me this is a bit of a long post.
I bought my first house a couple of years ago. (worst mistake i ever made). Since i got into the house we have had trouble with the central heating. (And 25 other things)
The problem now is half of the bottom floor radiators do not work. These seem to be in a room that was previously a garage and the bottom toilet/shower room.
On the first week i arrived they seemed to be working but then i had no heating what so ever in January.
Hoping for a reasonably priced fix i call a plumber who came three hours late gone 9pm and stayed for 15 minutes and said the programmer was knackered. I asked how much and he said it would be cheaper for me to do it myself. He wrote the model on some paper took £50 and that was that. I followed his advice fitted a new programmer and the problem was still there. I called again but he did not seem interested.
I then had a brain wave, British Gas had and still have a one of boiler repair service. One off cost including parts and labour. I called them and they said it would be £89 pounds up front if it was less than an hour or £169 if it was more than an hour. I agreed to this and they charged me the £169 straight away over the phone and said if it was less than an hour they would refund the rest.
They sent me a British gas engineer out the following day. In a fortnight i had 5 different engineers out. The first one came and replaced the (forgive me if i am wrong) port valve its in a Y configuration. The second guy replaced the motor on top of the port valve. The third guy done the hot water tank thermostat. All leaving scratching their heads. Each time they left i would phone and tell them it was not fixed and i would ask for the money back, to which they would reply i will send another engineer. I was quite happy for them to keep sending guys thinking eventually one would figure it out and fix it.
The fifth British Gas came out done a few things and scratched his head a lot. He said the electrical wiring was funny he said the only way to get the heating working was to turn it on and manually move the port valve and lock it in place by hand. Hooray the heating was back on (sort of). The three radiators down stairs in the garage conversion and shower/toilet would not come on at all.
Then he said the system needs to be flushed which is not covered by the one price one fee. Fair enough and fair play to BG i have had my monies worth out of them and the engineer even sorted out a refund because the problem was not totally fixed.
Then i grabbed a plumber through a friend who said he would do the system flush on the weekend in his own time and i paid him half the price British Gas quoted. He came around 8am and was here till 8pm. He flushed the system which came out black as the ace of spades and ended up a very light brown by the time he had finished. The came the fun all the rads on apart from these three downstairs so i was in the same boat. He then proceeded to replace the central heating pump for a brand new one which he did not charge me for but it made no difference.
Now i replaced a bathroom upstairs the whole bath, sink and toilet and tiled the lot. The old bathroom had a grubby Thermostatic Bar Mixer shower that i took out. I capped the one pipe and turned off the other.
Could this have anything at all to do with the problem?.
I am out of idea's the last plumber earlier this year on a recommendation said replace the boiler and i asked how would that cure the three rads not coming on and he said we would look at that after if the new boiler did not cure the problem and handed me a quote for £2900.
Send me a cheque for £100 - then I`ll tell you what`s wrong 
