Only top part of very first radiator heats up

[laurencej]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum and to plumbing/heating.

I just moved to France because of work and I've moved into a house with a vaillant gas boiler. I tried to look the model up and it should be some atmoTop plus or Atmotop vmc plus.

Since I moved in this appartment I've had the gas installed 2 weeks ago and immediately after it was cut due to a dangerous gas leak.

After a week they managed to put it back on and as soon as the technicians left I discovered a water leak from below the boiler and switched it off because I got scared.

After another week (all of this without heating or hot water in a house with no furniture in a country where I know nobody) a technician came and got the boiler started saying that there was a problem with a valve that leaked water.
The boiler was running so I had heating and hot water but the small water leak caused the pressure to drop to zero while I was at work.

When I got home I raised the pressure as the technician told me: by opening two taps. This happened almost instantly and the pressure was approximately 1.5 bar.

After that I switched on the heating but only the top part of the radiator next to the boiler got warm, the rest of the radiator is cold and the rest of the house is freezing.

I will upload some images of the boiler and radiator. The boiler has indicated with two arrows the two taps I opened to raise the pressure (I had to use a flathead screw driver).

I tried bleeding the radiators but only water came out (and the fact that the hot part is the top one also suggests that bleeding is not the issue).
I tried isolating the radiator which was giving me problems but that didn;t help either.
I tried also leaving only the bathroom radiator on but that didnt heat it up either.


If anyone can help me they would really make my day. I cannot do it anymore without heating or showering, plus it's snowing all weekend.

Thanks in advance,

Laurence


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[petertheplumber12]

Golden rule with rads, cold at the top hot at the bottom air(needs bleeding), hot at the top cold at the bottom sludge (needs cleaning) and the reason for collecting sludge needs investigating.

 

[Dan Robinson]

That is a TurboMax (in the UK at least). At least 7 years old (in the UK at least).

Rads hot at the top and cold at the bottom do not need bleeding, you have circulation problem which could be a guffed diverter valve, duff pump, sludged up system.


Really you need an English heating engineer who won't surrender at the first sign of having to get any tools/equipment out in anger.

 

[petertheplumber12]

if 1 rad is partially full of sludge you may have other problems also the is blocked valves or blocked pipes, I know nothing about that type of boiler but if it is a combi it shouldn't be working. they don't like sludge, first thing to go is hot water.

 

[petertheplumber12]

Looking at the pictures it obviously is a combi, you need a lot of things done at the wrong time of the year, good luck.

 

[laurencej]

thanks for the quick replies,

I had a technician this morning setting it up for me and the heating worked in the whole house perfectly. When I left home for work after he set it up I turned the heating knob to summer because I didnt want heating while I wasnt there (maybe that was stupid of me I dont know) but the pressure dropped to zero.

Now it's stuck on the first radiator, does this help somehow? I somehow doubt it's sludge because it was working fine 13 hours ago.

 

[laurencej]

Since I made the first post the radiator from the picture has become more hot towards the bottom although the temperature drop along it is still large.
The pressure also dropped from 2 to below 1 bar. I will try and increase the pressure again hoping it pushes water through the rad.

The hot water is working fine right now.


I wish I was in UK where I can speak the language and where plumbers speak my language

 

[laurencej]

In the picture where you can see the valves of the boiler on the bottom right you can see the leaking valve. It is the one with the plastic cap and the hole 90 degrees with respect to each other

sorry for the bad descriptions I really know nothing about this and I cannot get it fixed before monday because of the weekend = I'll freeze

and sorry for the multiple posts

Edit to add that pressing the info button gives me the code S 7.

Also, Closing the radiator in the picture makes the hot water go through another pipe that goes to my living room but once it reaches the radiator I get the same problem: the pipe heats up but the hot water struggles to reach the radiator.

 

[Dan Robinson]

What radiator?

What picture?

 

[laurencej]

I edited the original post because I forgot to add the picture of the radiator.
The one with the blue wall is the one that is only heating half way through.

The broken valve is in the lower right corner of the photo showing the bottom of the boiler (the photo with all the valves not the photo with the white pipes)

In the photo with the white pipes you can see one going to the left, this one is the one that goes into the thermostat valve of the radiator with the blue wall.