Hi guys, snapped off the spindle head on hallway radiator valve. Can the spindle or valve be replaced without draining the whole system down. Seen a you tube video about freezing the pipework, is it easy & does it work .
Cheers Doug
This is what I would do.
1. Get an identical valve to the broken one. Remove its bottom nut and olive. Remove the tail which goes into the rad.
2. Close down the valve at the other end of the rad.
3. Put a large container under the broken valve. This has to be large enough to contain all the water in the rad. Maybe several containers and a helper to swop them.
4. With the new valve within reach remove the bottom nut on the faulty valve, pull the pipe out and quickly put your thumb over the end.
5. Relax and watch the water drain from the rad while your helper manipulates the containers.
6. Quickly fit your new valve to the end of the pipe and finger tighten the nut so no or very little water dribbles out.
7. Once the rad has drained you can undo the nut on the left of the old valve, remove it, and fit the new one on. There should be no need to change the tail in the rad.
8. Tighten everything up, open both valves allowing the rad to fill and bleed it. While doing this ask your helper to put the kettle on, get a beer from the fridge, or whatever.
9. Relax and enjoy your drink.
If that is upstairs only need to drain top part and closing the valves on all other radiators will only mean having to drain the pipes not as bad as it sounds and if you are quite DIY savvy shouldn’t take you more than an hour.
I have not heard good things about them freeze kits and would probably avoid for a job that is quite simple.
Is it a sealed or open vented system? If sealed, it’s pretty easy to do as when the system is depressurised, it doesn’t really leak much when you change the valve. Well, mine didn’t!
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