The One Cold Radiator Saga...

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Hi,

New to the forum, have done my best to try and work out what the issue is with the radiator in the kitchen, but have gotten nowhere quickly, so thought I'd ask for some assistance.

System Info, let me know if more is required
- Open-vented system (Tank on 2nd Floor)
- Glowworm Ultimate 50FF Boiler (Ground Floor)
- Magnaclean fitted (First Floor near Hot Water Tank)
- Wilo-Yonos Pico Pump (As above)
- 10mm?? plastic pipe to radiators
- 15 year old house/boiler
- previous owners have had X100 and X400 added to CH system

Attempted
- Turning off all radiators, opening the one cold. No change
- Balancing radiators. No Change
- Bleeding the radiator. No air, no change
- Opened Lock shield and drainage, opened TRV, hot water comes through, radiator is warm.
- Removed the return pipe from the radiator, no water came out of it.
- Removed the return pipe from the radiator, opened Lock Shield and TRV, hot water comes through, radiator is warm.

Thoughts
- Feed pipe OK
- Radiator OK
- Return Valve OK
- Return Pipe blocked?

Any thoughts, suggestions or ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks
 
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If there's no water coming out of one of the pipes thats your problem. Take it off again then take (carefully) the valve off the pipe to rule out the valve being blocked/closed. Thats your first port of call. If you get water change/fix the valve. If not its blocked further back and that could be a mare.
 
Thanks for getting back to me gigz, I forgot to mention I'd taken the pipe off the valve and still no water. So from the sounds of it, the pipe itself is blocked.

Any way to clear the blockage that I can do at home?
 
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Cheers Steelmasons, that was my next plan of action :)
 
Gigz is right about being a 'mare:unsure: 15 year old system with 10mm plastic pipe - pipes buried in the walls under plasterboard ? Chipboard flooring concealing pipes and the manifold from which the 10mm's go to each rad ?. I sucessfully cleared a blocked 10mm Copper pipe on an old skool manifold system by various plumbing fittings to one end of the pipe connected to the mains- the other end exited a window- turned on full bore - nothing for a few seconds then a jet of black shyte shot 15feet across the garden. Other methods are available using pieces of wire (y) Seriously I would consider fitting an under plinth electric fan heater. You would gain the wallspace from the rad and how could a plumber give you a price on such an unknown outcome of a job?
 
correct, pipes in the walls under plasterboard. also chipboard flooring concealing the pipes and manifold. It's like you're in my house o_O

i reckon i could connect mains to the return pipe from the radiator, issue is finding the other end of that pipe so im not just pushing the flith back up the system. wire might be an option, but I'll make sure to have a number of buckets ready, unless i should attempt to drain my system first?
 
If I could psychically find your manifold I would ;) The one I blasted out was under floorboards that had been cut to install it - so a bit of a give away. I disconnected the one pipe from the ( drained ) manifold. You could try the wire - with buckets and towels/sheets and a 10mm push fit stopend at the ready . You'll need water in the system to flush the blockage toward your open pipe IF the wire works. Only one way to find out.
 
Right, thank you for the suggestions - I have good news and bad news....

I drained the CH system from the drain valve on the cold radiator, which also appeared to be the lowest radiator (followed a good youtube video for a vented system) but noticed that all other radiators on the ground floor still had water coming out the bleed valve. I assumed this was due to the return pipe on the cold radiator being blocked.

Once it was drained, i disconnected the return pipe from the radiator and pushed through some net curtain wire (right thickness, flexibility and strength, would highly recommend) into the blocked pipe and made about 1.5ms worth of progress until i hit a stop. Gradually attempted to push it further and got a bit of a trickle out the end of the pipe.

Although a slight risk, as didn't know where the end of the pipe was, attached the garden hose to the pipe and turned on the tap very gently for about 30 secs. Disconnected the hose from the outside tap and low and behold a strong stream of water came flowing out the hose pipe.

Checked the return pipe by pushing the net curtain wire up and managed to go further than last time, success I thought. Reconnected everything back up, re-filled the CH system (also following a youtube video) and turned on the heating, at last the radiator was now hot.

I definitely need to do some balancing on the radiators as with all fully open on the TRV, there was a good range of temperatures. However, I seemed to have moved the problem to the small radiator on the landing (smh, fml).

There is no air in that radiator, but can't check the flow as it doesn't have a drain valve.

tldr; fixed the cold radiator, but now have another one on the 1st floor.

Could I have caused another issue by draining and refilling or by attaching the hose pipe to the return pipe and pushing the problem further up the house? Is another full drain in order?
 
Sounds like it needs a good flush, you could drain it all down and add some x400. Run it for a few weeks then drain again and add x100. P.S. The downstairs rads will be droppers and will need draining individually. I would also fit a magnaclean to catch any muck that you dont get out with the flush.
 
Sounds like it needs a good flush, you could drain it all down and add some x400. Run it for a few weeks then drain again and add x100. P.S. The downstairs rads will be droppers and will need draining individually. I would also fit a magnaclean to catch any muck that you dont get out with the flush.

Luckily there is already a magnaclean fitted, so I'll look at getting some x400 and x100 and doing another drain. At least the kitchen (where the cold radiator was) is now warm. Thanks for the advice.
 

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