My F&E tank has no ballcock?

[4eldred]

Trying to understand our heating system. There are two tanks in the loft - one larger one with a ballcock, which I believe is the cold water tank. It has a cover on it, is full of water, and has pipes coming out of it with the two levers (one red one blue) shown in the photo.

There is a smaller one which I thought should be the F&E tank but it is empty and has no ballcock (see photo).

We have a hot water cylinder on the first floor with a lever that points to ‘hot water’ or ‘heating’.

We have an ancient Glow-worm Fuelsaver F boiler.

Can anyone explain what it going to me please?

 

[Dan Robinson]

In the olden days, you had to manually top up your f&e.

 

[4eldred]

Ah - olden days sounds about right with everything in this house. Slowly getting round to changing that.

Should I add cold water to the F&E then? About a third or half way?

 

[picasso]

You might have a primatic cylinder although there is not normally a tank in the loft.

 

[4eldred]

Here’s a photo of the valve on the cylinder. How do I tell if it’s primatic?

Should I add some water to the smaller tank or not?

Thanks

 

[picasso]

The cylinder normally has "primatic" or fortic written on it, leave the tank as it is if you don't normally fill it manually and you know exactly what it is.

 

[Terrywookfit]

Looks like an old "Servowarm" install.

 

[Razor900]

Looks like an old "Servowarm" install.

Yep, best to never pressurise the rads!!

 

[4eldred]

Correct on the Servowarm point - here is our boiler timer.

Picasso - when you say if we don’t normally fill it, well we don’t normally but we only bought the house two years ago and god knows what the previous owners did.

 

[4eldred]

The main reason for trying to work this all out is that a couple of the radiators on the second floor are cold at the top, I’ve bled them and air comes out but no water.

 

[Terrywookfit]

The tank probably needs topping up then.
Check that outlet in bottom of the tank is connected to heating system.

 

[4eldred]

The tank probably needs topping up then.
Check that outlet in bottom of the tank is connected to heating system.

Thanks - I kept the radiator open and added a bit of water, then checked the radiator and heard a promising hiss of air. Kept slowly topping up until the feed was submerged and eventually got a whoosh of water out of the radiator.

Thanks so much for all your help, warm bedrooms tonight