back boiler not heating radiators

[jenni1840]

Hi,

Firstly just to mention that I know next to nothing about plumbing.

Have recently moved to a house with both an oil fired boiler for hot water and heating, an immersion heater for hot water and a open fire with back boiler which we've been informed should do both hot water and heat the radiators.

The immersion heater and the oil fired boiler both seem to work fine and the back boiler seems to have no problems heating the hot water up. The problem we have is that when we flick the switch to turn the pump on for the heating from the back boiler we get no heat going to radiators. We can hear a pump going on so are assuming that the pump itself works, we have also checked around house to see if is any valves that look like need turning on, we've discovered 3 valves in airing cupboard (not sure what any of them do!!) and all three of them appear to be open.

We've tried both turning the pump on before lighting and the fire and waiting till we can hear the water in back boiler bubbling away before we flick the switch, neither seems to work.

We like a nice coal fire going in the evening and it seems a waste not to get the radiators going when we have the fire going anyway.

Any help or suggestions would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks,

Jenni.

 

[kevplumb]

check the pump first
just cos its making a noise dont mean its moving water

 

[slapper]

Hi,

Firstly just to mention that I know next to nothing about plumbing.

Have recently moved to a house with both an oil fired boiler for hot water and heating, an immersion heater for hot water and a open fire with back boiler which we've been informed should do both hot water and heat the radiators.

The immersion heater and the oil fired boiler both seem to work fine and the back boiler seems to have no problems heating the hot water up. The problem we have is that when we flick the switch to turn the pump on for the heating from the back boiler we get no heat going to radiators. We can hear a pump going on so are assuming that the pump itself works, we have also checked around house to see if is any valves that look like need turning on, we've discovered 3 valves in airing cupboard (not sure what any of them do!!) and all three of them appear to be open.

We've tried both turning the pump on before lighting and the fire and waiting till we can hear the water in back boiler bubbling away before we flick the switch, neither seems to work.

We like a nice coal fire going in the evening and it seems a waste not to get the radiators going when we have the fire going anyway.

Any help or suggestions would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks,

Jenni.

I would suggest you call a Plumber in before you start opening and closing valves on a solid fuel set up.