Central Heating Problem..Solid fuel

[humero]

Hi, this is my first post, excellent site with lots of useful info on. Anyway hope somebody can help me - I recently moved into a new house and the only heating is run off a solid fuel log/coal burner in the lounge. It runs 4 radiators. 3 upstairs and 1 down stairs in the dining end of the lounge diner. Now the landing radiator has stopped working and the one in the dining room has never worked - I have bled the air from the system several times - it keeps getting air in it as the fire heats the water so quick it always gurgles and sounds like it's boiling and going up the vent pipe. The pump is located upstairs in one of the bedrooms, just next to all of the vent and fill pipe work...questions..
1. SHould I leave the fill pipe valve open all of the time so that even when the water goes up the vent pipe it is replaced?
2. What could cause the landing and dining room rads to not be working - there is no air in them and I have tried to balance all of the radiators? (The landing one worked when we first tried the system)???

Thanks for any help - I will be installing a boiler of some sort over the summer but that will be the subject of a separate post as I have several idea but not sure which is best..

CHeers

Rob

 

[Softus]

1. SHould I leave the fill pipe valve open all of the time so that even when the water goes up the vent pipe it is replaced?

YES!

In fact, YES!

In fact, remove the valve from the cold feed - it shouldn't be there

2. What could cause the landing and dining room rads to not be working - there is no air in them and I have tried to balance all of the radiators? (The landing one worked when we first tried the system)???

Magnetite and rust could quite easily block them.

 

[oilman]

Where abouts are you? You should have someone experienced look at it, and that means someone experienced, not a dypso who says "nah mate, you need a new boiler".

Think VERY carefully before you go and stick a boiler in that uses gas or oil. Prices are rising quickly now, in the near future they will rise even faster. You have much flexibility with your present heater, by all means add to it, but DO NOT GET RID OF IT. You can run both on the same system, anyone who says you can't, has things to learn.

 

[humero]

oilman - totally agree, I was only going to add a boiler to supplement the solid fuel one - problem at the moment is the mornings are cold and it takes a while to get the fire lit and water heated etc, plus the main bedroom and two bathrooms do not have any radiators so I would need to put some in there but not sure if the log burner could cope with that - nmeed to check it out...

 

[oilman]

Radiators in bedrooms? Whatever for? We haven't ANY radiators in bedrooms, at night we don't need them; in the day, we're not there so we don't need them, and we're a lot furthur north than Cornwall.

Have a look here and here

 

[ginian]

Sounds like your pumps the wrong way round. Its opposite from oil heating

 

[dcawkwell]

Close all the radiators valves except one radiator and open the valves fully on one radiator and allow the system to circulate.
Open the drain valve and allow the system to flush.
Repeat with each radiator in turn.
Close the drain and then balance the radiators.

I would suggest adding an air source heat pump say 5 or 10kw system
using a buffer tank. Check ebay for prices of air source heat pumps. Some 12kw ones for 1200 would do the whole house hot water and central heating and be as cheap to run as an natural gas condensing boiler.