Is there a Plumber in the House.....

Rule of thumb to vent a system is to do it with the pump turned OFF. With old systems (like your gloworm) this is important because you will have positive and negative sides of the system. And it can easily be the case to vent a rad, hear some 'hissing' and think "wow look at all the air I'm venting" when infact the rad is sucking air IN! Because of the negative side of the pump.

Modern fully pumped systems arent as bad and you can use the positive side (run the pump) to assist venting.

But sealed sytems (modern) should definately NOT be be run until properly filled, vented and pressurised.

mysticsniper

Start from the beginning mate :)

Get you ass in the loft and check both tanks have water in them and that the float valves operate.
Turn your system off
Open all your rad valves (not lockshield/ capped end)
Vent the rads starting with downstairs and working your way upstairs.
Make sure you get water out of all the rads.
Turn your system ON
If some rads get hot and others dont, then turn the hot ones OFF, and see if heat gets into the cold ones.


Possible problems:

Stuck float valve: no water in cold feed & expansion tank: DIY

blocked cold feed: tank full but cant get rads filled. Plumber

pump tired: system full but pump can only get a couple rads warm, (depends which rads you have turned on): Plumber or good DIYer

Pump & valves blocked with sludge and scale, happens on old systems: Plumber

**Motorised valve faulty: not opening or rotted rubber inside (Honeywell), Whole valve: Plumber. Synchron or head, Plumber or good DIYer

** If you have one.


Me off to work now

Have fun ;)
 
Ok, there is water in both the tanks. I turned off all the rads and just had the 1 fault rad on downstairs. I then switched the pump to full power and turned on the heating to its max. The rad was still cold, and so I opened the rad and there were no hissing noises, as water started to come out, but the pipes were still cold.

I guess there is a blockage in my pipes and they need to be flushed out. I tried one rad at a time, with the same results, water came from them all, and still not heat was going to the rads from the pipes. :(
 
mysticsniper said:
Ok, there is water in both the tanks. I turned off all the rads and just had the 1 fault rad on downstairs. I then switched the pump to full power and turned on the heating to its max. The rad was still cold, and so I opened the rad and there were no hissing noises, as water started to come out, but the pipes were still cold.

I guess there is a blockage in my pipes and they need to be flushed out. I tried one rad at a time, with the same results, water came from them all, and still not heat was going to the rads from the pipes. :(
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Well I asked my training officer at work and he guessed almost identically to me. He was an engineer for 27 years! But of course without actually seeing the problem it could be something else.

If you need it flushing out, it ain't cheap :( . Do you by chance have plastic pipes to the radiators? Seen it before where they weren't the right type of plastic (no membrane) so air was being sucked through them over time and this caused the copper pipes in the rest of the system to start corroding and block it all up. Think that cost them £400+ and it was about half a days work with only 3 radiators in the house! Needs inhibitor putting in to stop it happening again too, that needs renewing every 5 years!
 
jonno.co.uk said:
thanks for the info! come to think of it the neighbour did mention they saw water coming from the overflow pipe not long back....

i'll have to give a plumber a call then, any ideas as to cost? what are the consequences of not doing this in a hurry?

edit: yes it's a combi boiler, a crap one at that (powermax - manufacturer has gone bust)
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As mentioned in my previous post, I asked my training officer about this problem too! He said the same as me, expansion vessel has water in or has lost its charge. Or simply just a leak as you thought originally, but if water is coming from the overflow then it's almost certainly the former problem. The only other way water would come out is if the pressure went to something like 3mBar or more!

Consequences will be minor, it will just get worse over time I'd have thought. It will leak more and more water and the pressure will be lost faster and faster. It won't fix itself! No idea on cost, I normally deal with people with service and breakdown contracts (so it costs them nothing). But the highest cost will be a call out fee and then labour charge, any parts will be pennies in comparison.

Powermax :eek: . They're a real bugger to work on I'm afraid! Company policy has changed just for these boilers. Normally for a service we are given an average of 37mins. For these a full service is 2 hours and are carried out at longer intervals than the usual 1 year. Instead, a "safety check" is carried out every year which is a shortened down version taking about an hour. This might cause labour costs to shoot up a bit depending on where the expansion vessel is (I haven't worked on them myself yet).
 
St0rmer66 said:
Well I asked my training officer at work and he guessed almost identically to me. He was an engineer for 27 years! But of course without actually seeing the problem it could be something else.

If you need it flushing out, it ain't cheap :( . Do you by chance have plastic pipes to the radiators? Seen it before where they weren't the right type of plastic (no membrane) so air was being sucked through them over time and this caused the copper pipes in the rest of the system to start corroding and block it all up. Think that cost them £400+ and it was about half a days work with only 3 radiators in the house! Needs inhibitor putting in to stop it happening again too, that needs renewing every 5 years!
Click to expand...

No plastic pipes all copper ones as far as I can see. I am having a mate of a mate out just to confirm the problem before I do anything. If what your saying is right and it will be around the £400 mark, then I can call out British Gas and they have said it would only cost me £156 all in, parts and Labour and call out.

Cheers for your help :)
 
mysticsniper said:
No plastic pipes all copper ones as far as I can see. I am having a mate of a mate out just to confirm the problem before I do anything. If what your saying is right and it will be around the £400 mark, then I can call out British Gas and they have said it would only cost me £156 all in, parts and Labour and call out.

Cheers for your help :)
Click to expand...
I work for British Gas! I thought it was much more than £156! But as I said, I don't actually deal with any money myself :) .
 
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