Cold Radiator. Am I doing things right?

[tigers999]

Yes

Brilliant mate, I am finally on the right track then lol

After having all of the radiators on for 10 minutes I have noticed a considerable drop in temperature of the warm parts of the "faulty" radiator. I am guessing that the balancing does need looking at now so have just turned all of the heating off and I am going to let the rads cool down, then me and my wife are going to try and figure out the order of the radiators.

Then tomorrow I will get the radiator off and flush it and balance the radiators!

If I have missed anything please let me know

 

[Armo74]

You could also try swapping the TRV head as i suggested earlier,for what it takes to do at least you can rule it out.

 

[tigers999]

You could also try swapping the TRV head as i suggested earlier,for what it takes to do at least you can rule it out.

Yeah I suppose I could try that before flushing the radiator through. If it wasnt working though I am guessing the radiator wouldnt heat up at all? Again just guessing lol

Thanks again mate

 

[tigers999]

Right, I will start by thanking everyone who answered me today, it has been really helpful

I now finally think I am getting somewhere!

I have found the order my radiators heat up in the house and yes the one in question is the last one in the run. I have since gone around balancing the radiators using the lock shield valves and after abit of trial and error I finally have heat in the radiator in the living room similar to when all of the radiators were off! I only have the radiators upstairs open by about a half a turn mind but they seem to be working ok so touch wood

The only problem is.........the radiator still isnt getting hot at the bottom lol

Atleast the rest seems to have been fixed by my "maintenance" today and the radiator is atleast providing abit of heat so all was not wasted.......and i have learnt how my heating system works so that cant be a bad thing either lol

I think the next job is to check both valves are working and then if they are, flush the radiator. If that doesnt work my friend thinks that the run of radiators could just be too long to heat that last radiator! (I have 12 in total) Could this be possible? Surely not!

Thanks again for the help and assurances. I hate fixing things myself but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet lol

 

[tigers999]

You could also try swapping the TRV head as i suggested earlier,for what it takes to do at least you can rule it out.

Sorry I think understand what you mean now. The radiator in question doesnt have a traditional TRV head...only a + & - on and off valve as such.

 

[Armo74]

You could also try swapping the TRV head as i suggested earlier,for what it takes to do at least you can rule it out.

Sorry I think understand what you mean now. The radiator in question doesnt have a traditional TRV head...only a + & - on and off valve as such.

Ok, when you have the radiator off to flush it out put plenty of old towels down and get a bucket over the valve and open it to make sure you have good flow and no blockage. It also wouldn't hurt to remove the vent plug on the rad if you can and add some good quality inhibitor.

 

[tigers999]

Hiya mate,

Yeah cheers, I was discussing doing that with a friend lastnight. It is a big radiator so I think I am going to have to leave it until the weekend now until my wife is home.

I still dont understand what is going on with the heating.

It went off lastnight at 11.30pm as usual and it should have come on full at 6.50am this morning. At 9.30am when I got up I came downstairs and it was freezing. The thermometer sat at the thermostat was reading 19C despite the heating been on at 26C since 6.50am, and the radiator behind me just isnt getting warm again I can feel abit of heat from it but nothing like I had it lastnight.

It seems to be taking a long time to heat the house up but I guess I also have never tested this before so this could be normal. It is upto 21C now so I guess it is slowly getting there. I do know though that the radiator behind me was definitely warmer lastnight after balancing but now it is back to before

Does this indicate a problem with a valve or something maybe?

Thanks as always

 

[tigers999]

OK, time has passed and things are starting to make abit of sense.

The thermostat in the hallway is now reading about 23C so it is getting warmer. Also the radiator in the living room is finally as warm as it was lastnight so I am relieved the balancing is ok that I did.

A couple of things to note though. The "click" on the thermostat is still at 20C whereas the thermometer sat on top of the thermostat is reading 23C. I am guessing my cheap £10 thermometer is out but just thought it was worth mentioning.

After some deliberation in my head, I think the problem with the thermostat and the heating is the hallway that it is in has a poorly fitted front door (barratt) which does let a draft through. This hallway only has a very small radiator which must be taking hours to heat up the hallway to the requested thermostat temperature, so long infact I dont think it ever will in this weather. Hence the reason why the click is never really changing despite the heating being on full. The heating wont run any hotter as such so the thermostat wont change. Does this sound logical?

I am thinking about not turning the heating off on a night now and just turning it down to say 20C and see if it keeps the house warmer in the morning....it should obviously.

The radiator behind me........well that still needs taking off and testing because it isnt heating up at the bottom but like I said, I will attempt that on Sunday when my wife is off. Then I have someone to shout at when it goes wrong

 

[tigers999]

Yep,

Just to confirm, the heating has been on full all day and I have just come home after a few hours. The "click" on the thermostat is at about 21C and the thermometer sat on the thermostat is reading 22.6C.

The problem radiator in the living room is as hot as it was lastnight so that is working still but with the same cold problem down the bottom. It is considerably cooler than all other radiators mind but still warm.

Again, I am thinking the house cant get any hotter than what it is doing at the moment and no amount of adjusting anything will change that........I do also think though that the radiator behind me does have problems which is making it not heat up like the others. Like I said, I will investigate that this weekend.

Am I on the right track? Or is there a problem somewhere do you think?

 

[Terry7556]

you are on the right track but if you do not carry out the advice such as given by armo then you cannot move on because you have not eliminated what stands in your way at this moment in time.
take the rad off, flush it through in the garden, slap the bottom of the rad as you flush to dislodge sludge and whilst the rad is off carry out the bucket test at both valves to test if you have reasonable flow

 

[Armo74]

Please try what has been advised and if it doesn't work then post back and hopefully we can help you further

 

[tigers999]

Thankyou for the replies and ofcourse help...I know they are simple things so thanks aswell for your patience. I guess you can tell by now my DIY skills are somewhat limited lol

I am definitely going to give the radiator a flush and do the bucket test but on Sunday now so I will let you know how I get on.

Thanks again, very much appreciated