Central heating packed up.....

[tigertiger]

Yet another problem has arisen in the house I just moved in.
I live in a 3 story house, when we moved in only about 3 of the radiators out of about 10 worked. The working ones located upstairs.
So a guy came round to 'fix' the problem, and this has resulted in none of the radiators working, and even the hot water deciding not to workl
The repair man, I think, is a friend of the owner and has no clue what to do (he's been around 3 days in a row, and made the problem worse)....any suggestions of what I can do myself? We have tried the bleeding thing, but still nothing. Help! Its a very terrible time to have no heating and no warm water....

 

[ChrisR]

It's almost certainly a sludge problem, unless you have trv's all round and they're mostly stuck shut.
For sludge the answer's a Powerflush. but you can do a lot of good fairly easily with a mains hose.

In principle:
First check the loft header tank overflow looks connected ok - so it won't leak if the tank fills up. Or better is to join the small tank's Outlet pipe and the Vent which is over it. turn off the input/tie the ball up.

Take a bottom rad off, attach garden hose to one of the unions (3/4" BSP) and another to the other rad connection, going to a drain. Then you wash through each rad in turn - if only one is open it'll take all the flow apart from the boiler - if you close a pump valve that may isolate the boiler. Have a look to see what motorised valves you have - if you can follow it the job's simple, but not advised if you can't!

 

[felix]

Check the obvious stuff first. Is the boiler working? It obviously was before but might not be since Mr Fixit arrived! Is the pump working? A duff pump might have been the original problem. Upstairs radiators can work, though not very well, on gravity flow but any below the boiler will stay cold. The HW circuit might be gravity fed anyway. I think we need a more thorough description of your system.