Hot, cold and rusty radiators

I have a lot of radiator problems!

First off we have a rusty radiator I want to clean up and repaint - I have a hammerite rust beater, but it says I can't use it on certain metals - being a bit useless, I don't know what my radiator is made from. We also have a variety of badly behaving radiators, three of which are stone cold, two that are hot at the bottom and cool at the top and two that we can't switch off even with the thermostat knobs on the side. I don't think it helps that our system was retro fitted into the house with three different pipe layouts. We've tried bleeding and twiddling the thermostats on all the radiators and nothing changes. Its getting frustrating, we've had problems with the system since we moved in and we've never had all the radiators working at any one time.

We had a gas and heating guy come around last year to service the boiler and he got two of the radiators going again, temporarily - they stopped as soon as he left. I don't know what he did to the boiler, but now you can scald your hands under the hot tap if you are not careful, and its on its lowest possible heat setting! Our heating system is a gas fired ACL Lifestyle, and in the airing cupboard it has a little timer box, and a little box below that with a lever which I haven't dared move in case I do some irrevocable damage. It has the letters W M H and its currently pointing to H. Would this be the cause of the practically boiling water? Is it safe to change? Knowing my luck it means "warm, medium and hot" and I should have changed it ages ago but we've never had a manual to check. Any ideas at all would be greatfully received!

Water
Mid pos
Heating

lock it mid position with the lever
sounds like the motors gone hot water is the rest setting

if the rads rusty its steel

Turn your stat down on the cylinder if too hot.
Should be set at 60 degrees

dont think the stat will do much good if the valve aint working

Good one that turn stat down with nacked mot valve, I normally replace the boiler and the pump before realising that the room stat is behind the coats in the hallway

There doesn't seem to be any sort of temperature gauge on the whole of our heating system - I have no idea what temperature it is at, but it scalded my sons hand this afternoon while he was messing around with the taps. I do know that its at the lowest part of the dial that fires up the gas (its so low that we can't get it lower without turning the boiler off). Will the temperature of the water lower if I move the lever to the mid position or is it something else entirely? The water never used to be this hot, just since the gas guy was here to service the boiler. The boiler sounds the same as it always has done, how much effect would a duff motor have (apart from resetting it back to hot water?) What is a mot valve?

Do you not have a tank stat on your cylinder. They are normally sited a third up the cylinder and control the hot water temperature.
Set at 60 deg, it calls for heat when the water temp drops.

You need to address this if your water is too hot and also consider a thermostatic mixing valve to supply your hot taps.

The only thing that is a third of the way up near the cylinder (assuming you mean the thing in the airing cupboard at the top of the house) is a little box with the letters W M H with a little lever. There is nothing on the cylinder or the boiler in the kitchen that can tell me a temperature, which seems a bit bizarre given the hype on "reducing heat waste". Would moving the lever have any effect on the water temperature?

try it

We had a gas and heating guy come around last year to service the boiler and he got two of the radiators going again, temporarily - they stopped as soon as he left.

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Now you know what Corgi use blowlamps for. Gets the cheque in the pocket.

Tried moving lever and it wouldn't budge, although closer inspection shows it to be in between M and H instead of at H. The water is still coming out at the same temperature. My husband said much the same thing about the gas man, cheque in the pocket etc. I didn't see what they guy did to the boiler or the radiators because I'd only just had a baby at the time and wasn't paying much attention. I still haven't found any heating controls, unless they are on the very inside of the boiler instead of behind the easy access panels. The thermostatic mixing valve - is that something we could fit ourselves, and would we need one per tap?

I was only joking, I love corgi really.

you are in a minority of 1 then

By the way Tabbi, congratulations! (for the baby, not the boiler).

Tabbi said:

The thermostatic mixing valve - is that something we could fit ourselves, and would we need one per tap?

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You only need one at the hot water outlet. If you have some plumbing experience you could fit it yourself.

I believe the valve costs around £30