Central Heating Nightmare - Air in System Daily

Not fully sure what that is. There is only the boiler and circuit of rads. The other thing I forget to mention is that all my rads had locksheifl and thermostatic valve. On advice I removed the thermostatic valve from the bathroom rad so it has two locksheilds, so that there is always a path for water to take.

..no change in symptoms

Can you please post (again?) the make/model of the Gas?Boiler, a combi??.
 
Here’s two videos of the rad noises. They can vary in frequency but this is what I’ll hear when either turning the system from cold, or turning off most rads except one.

 
Me too. Badley designed and maintained im thinking.
Probably. I think the entire system was installed circa 2010. New boiler, new rads except one in 2019. Pipework running along the hallway changed in 2024. So most of the system is ‘new’.

In terms of design, it’s a three bed semi so there isn’t actually much pipework there! Pipes come out boiler, into two adjacent rads, then up to the bathroom. From there into a bathroom rad, then along hallway for three metres, off in two bedrooms. It goes into a third bedroom and then down into living room, and down into extension. It’s these rads that are usually the nosiest and most problematic!
 
My photos are awful but here is one of the busiest junction. It’s hard to show layout without a diagram of the whole system. This used to look tidier when it was smaller pipe, it seems busy now but it’s quite space constricted and without lifting more boards it’s hard to arrange it better..


08914D7A-D9C2-4A02-982C-7E358D254E9D.JPG

The photo with the rad and the door
IMG_6260 copy.jpeg
shows how the rad next to this junction is connected, I believe. One end is connected pre junction and the other after. The junction is in the left of the photo, you can just see it on the edge. Ignore the dirtiest copper pipe one the right, that is an old pipe not connected to anything.

Other than this is pretty much laid out as you would expect. Radiators with a pipe of the nearest supply line in a straight fashion.

I don’t know much about pipe work plainning and configuration. Here the water flow has a ‘choice’ at the junction. It can fo relatively straight to the left down the the extension rad. Or it can flow down towards the camera, where it goes to the living room rad. Could this ‘choice’ be contributing? Is it better to design so that it’s pretty much one radiator after the other? I assume that in some houses this is unavoidable. FWIW if I turn off the extension rad, no change in system behaviour. So even with the ‘choice’ eliminated it is no different
 
I'm going to bet a virtual £ that somewhere under the flooring, a flow is mistakenly plumbed into a return, as per my previous post.

Please let us know, so that I can give you details of my virtual crypto account for my virtual £.
 
I'm going to bet a virtual £ that somewhere under the flooring, a flow is mistakenly plumbed into a return, as per my previous post.

Please let us know, so that I can give you details of my virtual crypto account for my virtual £.
This might sound dumb but how would I check and confirm this? It’s all quite simple down there.

A rad can’t be plumbed the wrong way right, just one end would be in and one end would be out, and they could be different on each rad? Ie as long as a rad is attached to both hot and cold, not both, everything is correct? All rads are attached to flow and return separately. At the very least, when turning the system on, there is one cold pipe and one hot pipe to the rad, they don’t both heat at the same rate, and one side of the rad gets hot before the other

So how could a flow be plumbed into a return? I need this spelt out for me perhaps!
 
Is that a no go? Should it be all plastic or all copper?

Sometimes it's unavoidable but generally not a good sign... Especially when you see it on a system that is having issues!

It causes an experienced plumber to begin wondering what else the installers may have done!

If extension was added then highly likely that builders did the extension to the plumbing system and used those JG fittings... Builders generally are not plumbers or heating engineers but plastic pushfit enables them to think they are!
 

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