Keep being woken up by vibrating radiator...

[clutterbug]

Let me explain...We have a combi boiler which feeds 7 radiators in our middle terrace house. The water goes through all the houses in the terrace as it is on the old system when a main water pipe goes through all the houses, and each house has a connection coming off it.

We have the timer set to come on at 6:30am and go off at 8:30am. For the past week we have been woken up at about 7:15am by the radiator next to our bed vibrating very badly. The only way we can stop it is to either have the radiator turned up to full (which makes the room boiling hot) or turned off (which makes it horribly cold to wake up to). All the radiators are set to about 2.5 (middle) and no other radiator does it.

Please help because its beginning to drive us mad!

Clutterbug

 

[croydoncorgi]

Sounds like the noise is coming from the valve on the rad. (If you can stop it by adjusting the valve) Try this: with the thing making the noise remove the dustcap (if any) and turn the valve at the other end of the rad slowly clockwise until the noise stops. You may need a small spanner or pliers to do this - lockshield valves are not intended to be adjusted frequently. If the rad stays hot, that will probably fix it permanently. If it goes cold, you've closed the lockshield valve too much, so that there's not enough flow through the rad.
The other possibility (if you've got thermostatic valves on all the rads) is that all the others are automatically closed (ie. the other rooms are warm) and all the output from the boiler is being forced through the rad in the bedroom. If so, you need to check / get a room thermostat, so that the boiler will not run when there's no call for heat., and / or adjust the settings of other radiator valves.

 

[clutterbug]

Thank you, will try it this evening.

Clutterbug

 

[brumylad]

Check the pressure is OK at the boiler (1 to 1.5 bar) or better still refer to the boiler handbook.

 

[doitall]

Thermostatic rad valve fitted on the return, and not bi-directional.

No by-pass valve or not adjusted/ faulty.

System head is too high when the thermostatic valves close the pin will bounce, a common problem with the old Honeywell thermostatic valves.