1 radiator not working

omg i tried all of the things said taken trv off swapped it for another one that was on one rad that worked still nothing i gently tapped the pin nothing i put wd40 on the pin nothin i bleed it nothing i even tried to pull the pin up with plyers nothing please help it so cold in my room the only rad that dont work in my whole flat.

It makes life difficult when so many people hijack a thread!

However, if a rad is cold then obviously hot water is not getting thru it!

If the rad is hot at the bottom and cold at the top then you might have air trapped in it, so bleed it.

If the whole thing is cold, either its sludged up, or something else is stopping water flowing into it. Are both valves (incoming and outgoing) open? If they appear to be, check the pipes leading to them coming from the floor.

If the incoming one is hot, but the rad cold, then the rad valve at one end is faulty. It might be a TRV, in which case the pin might be stuck down. You'll have to take off the TRV bit (the big head usually just unclips from the valve itself or is attached by a biggish knurled ring that unscrews) and you'll see a metal pin. Is it stuck inside the valve or is it sticking up? Try pressing on it with a flat-bladed screwdriver. It should be springy up and down. If stuck down, you'll need to pull it out with pliers. It only moves about 5mm in either direction, so dont go mad with it. If you can shift it upwards, does the rad start to warm up? If so, squirt some WD40 so it soaks into the valve around the pin. Give the pin a few pumps up and down - it should spring out when pressed in. If the rad is warming now, then put on the TRV head again, pat yourself on the back and warm your smug toes on it whilst thinking of the cash you've saved by not calling a plumber!

If still not working, either the valve as a whole is kaput, which is a bigger job, or the valve at the other end is faulty, or you dont have enough hot water pressure in the system to force it thru the rad. On a combi boiler system check your presure gauge and if it reads way less that 1, that might also be the problem, and if so, come back a say so. On a gravity system (with a header tank in the loft) check the header tank is not empty.

I would stress that I am not a plumber, just have had lots of problems with my rads too, so I feel your pain. A bit of detective work is needed to isolate the problem.

Hope this helps a bit.




Or, call a plumber

hi thanks for getting bk to me i am going to spend the whole day trying to fix it umm the pipe that leads in to the valve is hot but the rad is stone cold so it seems to be summit up with that pin cuz that does not move at all up or down so i try what you said and i do have a combi boiler so check presure i will let u know
many thanks nikki

thanks to all the experts I now have my bathroom rad working again. the TRV pin was stuck so i unscrewed the head. saw the pin was stuck down. I gave the valve a couple of gentle thumps with a vice grip but no joy. used vice grip to very gently pull the pin up. all is fine and dandy now. many many thanks.

cool

i know... i know.... it's bringing a thread back from the dead....but gawd i just love this forum!!!!

Thanks for all this info - dad and I got my non-working radiator working - he's been plumbing for 40 years, but hasn't dealt with combi-boilers until today - all your advice has been greatly appreciated in my cold bedroom! Thanks!

well that worked: sprayed wd40 on the pin, walked to the door to get some grippy things... there was a clunk behind me and the flow commenced... good one

This thread just got several of our radiators working. We had 4 not working and I found one stuck trv pin. What surprised me that two more radiators started working once I had loosened the stuck pin. Is that normal? I didn't think these things were on closed circuits?

We still have one not working and that has two open valves, a fully functioning trv pin and no air in it. Is it time to call the plumber?

Thanks again to the experts.
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Just wanted to add my thanks to all who posted here, especially, WabbitPoo for his clear explanation - all my radiators are now working ok.

I had a job like this once and found it to be damage to the microbore pipework coming down the wall! Wall had been replastered and workers had belted a soft copper pipe during plaster removal (and said nothing to owner)
I tried everything under sun until I found this out!

Might help...

Mine was pressure in conjunction with bleeding. I did bleed the radiator, but the pipes where hot and the radiator was still cold, that showed hot water was not getting into the radiator, so I checked the pressure downstairs and realised it was below 1, so I increased it to 2.

Problem Solved,