Help! One rad is cold on a new system install

[Grangey]

Hi all,

We recently spent 3.5k getting our single pipe gravity fed system "converted" to a twin pipe pressured system with combi boiler.

90% of the piping downstairs was replaced, but for some reason they didnt touch the upstaires piping... but they all work fine upstairs so this isnt the issue for now.

Basically what you are looking at is the radiator in our kitchen (was replaced with a new one at time of install). Now what you can see is the two pipes comming through the wall are the flow and return feeds (flow to the left, return to the right (yes from the layout from the rest of them they put the thermo rad valve at the wrong end but im assured this isnt a problem). Now as you will see, the pipes come out of the wall and go into the kitchen rad, but also are supposed to feed another rad in our dining room about 3m away where the piping is run under the ground.

Now the rad in our dining room has never worked, but we always put this down to the way it was piped with a gravity fed system. So with this install based on the installers recomendation, we have replaced the rad, got new valves at both ends (thermo and normal), and replaced the visible pipe.

This rad STILL doesnt work though! I've tried everything from shutting down all the rads on the system to try to force the heat to go to it, to bringing up the floorboards at the half way point, disconnecting the pipes, and try to investiage where a blockage can be. Now from my investigations we have discovered the blockage or circulation problem is on the flow. I have been able to check that from the dining room rad back half way is clear, but as the joins in the kitchen I am unable to try to flush this through.

So now this problem is, the installer is saying he will either replace the compleate pipework for £300, powerflush that section for £150, or the whole system for £300 inc chemicals. Now the problem is I dont want to pay for something that isnt needed, so the dilemma I have is we could pay to get the pipework to be replaced, but as far as Im concerned this should have been done in the first place, especially as we made them aware that rad has never worked and clearly the pipework wasnt flushed despite a new rad etc being installed. Or pay for the the pipes to be flushed, only to find that it is infact a circulation problem.

So now I dont know what to do! To me, this looks like one radiator spur, feeding another one, as when I shut the kitchen rad main valve off (not the thermo) the whole pipe goes cold rather than just the part leading to the kitchen rad.

Sorry for the essay but the guys saying hel come round tuesday as hes got some other ods and ends to complete, so I need to be able to let him know what I want done!

Any advice greatly apreciated!!

 

[Slugbabydotcom]

disconnecting the pipes, and try to investiage where a blockage can be. Now from my investigations we have discovered the blockage or circulation problem is on the flow.

Have you tried blasting the blockage with mains pressure by sticking a hose pipe on it?
If the system is sealed make sure the water has somewhere to go to.ie. Disconnect a joint put hosepipe on towards blockage and connect another to the other end to drain.
A powerflush is not guaranteed to clear a blockage if its solid so if that trick doesnt work then neither will a powerflush

Some may disagree on this but I think its better to invest in a magnaclean because that clears the system on a perpetual basis so invest your money there rather than a powerflush.

 

[seco services]

nice job.

if you have the rad much higher you could hang pics next to it.

 

[Grangey]

disconnecting the pipes, and try to investiage where a blockage can be. Now from my investigations we have discovered the blockage or circulation problem is on the flow.

Have you tried blasting the blockage with mains pressure by sticking a hose pipe on it?

Well this is one of the problems, We can get to one end under the floor boards, but wasnt sure how to get to the other end as naturally its welded to the pipe work.

Did you mean turn the mains on it through the boiler and disconnect the section I can get to and see if there is a flow comming out? It is the furtherst rad in the house and I wasnt sure if the mains comming through the system would be enough to clear it if there is a blockage. When we initially disconnected, the side leading to the kitchen rad seemed to have clean water comming from the pipes (the remaining water that was in the pipes after we drained the system that is), the other side which we have sinse cleaned had some mukky bits in the joins (used some stiff but flexible cable and managed to get it round the joins, this is ideally what I want to do from the other end but cant as its welded together).

 

[gavinda]

powerflush to 'reset' the system. magnaclean to protect and catch and crud that wa lossened but not removed. as the rad was not working before the job was started they can argue that that would be extra, unless they definitely said all rads would work.


but then as you say they installed a load of new pipework, they should as good pratice have flushed the system clean of any flux and swarf to prevent future corrosion.

then as you've pointed out , even when all the rads are off bar one you still get no circulation. this means that its either blocked solid or there is a design issue.

i would suggest you get the fitters back and ask them to do a full powerflush on the system ,maybe at a good price and see if that solves the issue. if not then sadly you are looking at physically cutting ad clearing the blockage.

 

[burygas]

Quality work that !

 

[boabcelt]

If my apprentice left a job like that, I would tan his a**e! If a new boiler has been fitted I would say that a thorough flush should have been carried out.

 

[gas4you]

The proper flush should have been carried out at the time of new boiler install.

If you made this problem clear to the 'cowboy' at time of quoting, then I would say it should have been included, or was it that he didn't speak english

Did you get an itemised quote in writing?

 

[Whitespirit66]

Why did they mount the radiator so high? And is the pipe work skew wiff, or is it the angle of the camera?

For an efficient convection cycle of hot air from a radiator, it is recommended that the bottom of the radiator is no higher that 150mm from the floor. This rad. will not do its job efficiently, and will waste energy.

Is the rest of the job like this? More pics. please!!

 

[Grangey]

believe it or not, this was actually taken after we had told him to correct it the first time which was even worse and I mean it looked like a W.

As for hight I actually got this wrong, the kitchin rad we havnt replaced so he simply piped to what was there, and most of the radiators (bar the new 1 in the dining room) are about this hight.

I am far from impressed from the quality of piping etc and if I knew it would have turned out like this I wouldnt have used him. But unfortunatly the work is done, I paid the full amount based on this initial completion, however sinse then we have had a few faults and got him to supply and fit a new rad at £100, and this I havnt paid him as I am worried that he simply wont come back and correct the errors etc that we arnt happy with.

In regards to the quote, the problem I have in regards to the piping is it says "convert exsisting pipework to run with new boiler" or something along these lines, which although at the time seemed fine, now we are in this situation in leaves us little to fight back against when it comes to things like mentioned flushing is best practise etc etc so I really dont know what to do.

I feel shafted quite honestly and dont know if I have any grounds to claim money back from back worksmanship or what but at the moment I just want to make sure I get the system compleatly working before worrying about what Im left with. At least then if and when the relationship does go south my system still works.

 

[gas4you]

Contact your local trading standards and ask them for advice or to intervene

 

[Grangey]

Gas4u thanks for your response. Iv just had a chat with my father who owns the property and has ultimatly fronted the bill for this and we have decided we are going to sit down with the installer and company director on tuesday (provided he turns up), present him with pictures of all of the wonky pipes and bad workmanship and give him the option to put it right.

I will be starting a new thread tomorrow with compleate pictures of the setup and the work they have done which I would like only proffessional pipe fitters and corgi installers to reply to and advise me what action we should take.

What ultimatly worries me is the fact I only have £100 with held from him at this stage, and I fear that although he may promise to put this right, with such a minimal amount outstanding in relation and considering the time it would take for him to put it right, and am afraid he may just give us the run around. So if this is the case I will be getting Trading Standards, Corgi, the council, the local press, and publising it all over the internet and doing everything we can to money off him to put this right from a compitent installer. Its just such a pain in the backside its turned out this way, but honestly every single pipe he has touched which is on show, is ****ed. I am useless with my hands but even I think I could have done a better job!!!

 

[gas4you]

At the end of the day 80% of our work is hidden. If you can't get the remaining 20% to the customers satisfaction, then one has to wonder about the installers sense of personal pride.

I have had jobs where the customer has insisted I run pipes where they show, but I would have preferred not to run them, but I always insist they sign a disclaimer stating it was their choice and also tell them to tell their friends it was not me who wanted to leave unsightly pipe work on show

 

[Agile]

Thats such a pity!

For half of that price I could have done a proper job and guaranteed that it woudl work properly.

Tony

 

[Grangey]

well this is one of the many things I dont understand! Some of the many places they chose to run pipes I just dont understand! for example, the kitchen rad as posted above. Those pipes come out on show in a bedroom behind, and then goes down underneath the floorboard. Why could they not have drilled through underneath the floorboard and just come up directly? And they did they same thing in the living room, the pipes come through the wall from the same bedroom to feed the living room rad. Why could they not have gone through underneath the floorboard?! We now have one room with "L" shaped pipes coming up on 2 of the 4 walls!?!! Its really ****ing me off now, I have enough stress from recently loosing my job and not finding anything to replace it, I now have to deal with this stress at the same time!!!