NEWBIE - HEATING BUT NO HOT WATER

[coulterb]

Hi there,

I am completely new to all this and i hope some of you guys can help me out. I have a problem with my hot water and one radiator. I just bought the house about a fortnight ago and have discovered that whilst the central heating heats the radiators it does not heat the water or the radiator in the Bathroom. I know that a new bathroom was fitted recently and have read a similar story on these boards about the bathroom radiator being fed of the hot water cylinder and not the heating circuit. Non of the hot water taps splutter and when i put the immersion on i get hot water no problem, which would suggest to me that the water feed to the cylinder is fine. I was wondering is it possible to get an airlock in the heat exchanger within the cylinder and if so how do i get rid of it. I know from speaking to my new neighbour that the heating had been running during the summer without any oil (the occupant went on holidays with the heating on timer and ran out of oil) could this make any difference anywhere? I have read about the hosepipe back up the hotwater tap to try and rid an airlock, the only problem for me is that all my water taps are mixers, how do i get round this problem? Another question i would like to ask is this. My house was originally built with SFCH and later changed to OFCH however the plumber doesn't seem to have piped into the original hot water piping but installed a new set of pipes - is this common practice?

I am sure i have loads more questions but i can think of them at the moment. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ChrisR]

Tried bleeding thebathroom rad? Also look by the HW cylinder for a bleed point. Then, do you have tw0 motorised valves? If so the HW one may be duff. It would typically have a lever on the end to open it manually in which case the HW would get hot with the CH.

What are SFch and OFch???!

 

[sifu]

I don't work on oil but you probably have a dry header tank (assuming you don't have a primatic cylinder) or blocked cold feed. Check the header tank is full of water, if so then empty a bucket-full of water out of the system and check the header tank starts to replenish the lost water. If not then you have a blocked cold feed. If none of these then you may have a sludged up coil in the cylinder (again, assuming it's not primatic).
To clear an air lock with mixer taps you need to press *very* hard again the tap outlet and turn on both the cold water and hot water taps. The higher pressure cold water should push any air locks out of the hot water circuit.

 

[ChrisR]

"when i put the immersion on i get hot water no problem"
means there's no air lock in the hw tap pipe though!

 

[sifu]

"when i put the immersion on i get hot water no problem"
means there's no air lock in the hw tap pipe though!

oops, missed that

 

[coulterb]

I have bled the radiator. Didn't know there was a bleed point in the hot water cylinder. I opened the draincock on the HWC and water came out but then again it's hardly likely to be Airlocked at the bottom of the tank, is it? By mixer taps i meant one tap that you turn to one side for hot water and one way for hot. If i use the kitchen mixer to remove an airlock is it likely to take long? Also i bought Furnox system restorer but the instructions are a bit vague so can someone tell me how i should use it?