A
Andrew Rolland
First post....newbie so please excuse any errors and not using correct terminology!
Conventional boiler at head height on ground floor. F&E tank in loft. Pump under ground floor as are zone valves. All rads are fitted with TRVs. 6 radiators upstairs. 7 radaitors downstairs.
We are in the process of decorating a couple of rooms so I took an old radiator off the wall and plan to re-fit a new one in a slightly different place which obviously means moving around a bit of pipe work. No problem with that have done that several times before.
Removed radiator and blanked off pipe work. Because I knew I would need to drain the system again to move the pipework I thought I would try giving it a clean with X400.
On refilling the system I poured in two litres of X400 Sentinel into my F&E tank in the loft and filled the system as usual to allow it to do its work before draining down to do the necessary moving of pipework in a few weeks time after blanking off the pipes to the radiator I have just removed. First time I have used X400. System has had X100 in it before.
It's now been about 4 weeks since I drained the system to remove the rad and blank off the pipes.
One of the two radaitors in the lounge (downstairs) is now cold. Both inlet and outlet pipes are cold. I don't know when this first occurred. Checked that both the valves were open. Shut and opened them a couple times to make sure they weren't stuck but then they have not been touched for months so ther was no reason as to why they would have been shut
Last night I switched system off and bled offending radiator. Clear water came out. Wound out the bleed key too much and big jet of water accross the living room so I know there is flow into the radaitor. The outlet pipe from the rad was now slightly warm but the inlet pipe was cold. Again indicating flow into the radiator is happening but wrong way round.
Turned down the trvs on the majority of other radiators to try and see if that radiator would get hot after 10 mins.
Radiator still cold. Oh bother or words to smilar effect but not for forum use.
Get up this morning to discover another downstairs radiator is stone cold. Oh bother, again. Away to work so couldn't bleed it, joined up on here!
Questions.
Have I managed to free up the sludge using the X400 which has now decided to deposit itself in locations in the pipework which means I've got two cold radiators?
Or have I pulled in a bit of sludge from the F&E tank when refilling the system. I noticed it looked bad on puring in the X400, but to me it was no worse than before and it is always very soft sludge that easily breaks up when water enters via the cistern/ball valve to my mind not sufficient to cause a block somewhere.......?
Or have I just got an air lock in the system which I have partially moved around which is now affecting two radiators?
A wee bit of info on my system....
My system is a pig to drain.
System all off, I either shut the service valve on the inlet to my F&E tank or sometimes I shut the service valve on the outlet of my F&E tank before opening the drain.
The drain is located under the ground floor level so it is at the lowest point in the system. I open this and water comes out and quite quickly stops. When working on upstairs rads this is fine. This is how I drained it when I did the recent work. However when working on downstairs rads (which are above the level of the drain) there is still water in them. I had to fit a draw off valve to one of the downstairs radiators to allow me to drain the downstairs rads. This takes quite a while via a length of hose out the front door! The central heating drain can be lying open under the floor yet there is water in the radaitors above it and their bleed vents open!
My system is a pig to fill.
System off. It gets all sorts of air locks in the pipes. I can have a full F&E tank in the loft above my head then remove the upstairs bathroom towel rail bleed valve and peer into the radaitor and see it half full of water.
To allow me to re-fill the system with out problems I fill the system via the F&E tank and then bleed the radiators starting from downstairs working up. I then switch on the system but turn the boiler off so that the pump runs but the system is not heated. I then switch off the system and bleed. Do this twice and generally I get all the air out the system.
The plan when I get home is to do a full drain via the draw off valve and using the central heating drain point. Then re-fill.
If that doesn't work the plan is to remove one of the offending rads and flush the rad outside.
Both the offending rads are old ones and have original trvs fitted.
Boiler fine, other radiators fine so it's not the pump/boiler/zone valves.
Any thoughts? Please let me know if you need any other info.
Many thanks
Andrew
Conventional boiler at head height on ground floor. F&E tank in loft. Pump under ground floor as are zone valves. All rads are fitted with TRVs. 6 radiators upstairs. 7 radaitors downstairs.
We are in the process of decorating a couple of rooms so I took an old radiator off the wall and plan to re-fit a new one in a slightly different place which obviously means moving around a bit of pipe work. No problem with that have done that several times before.
Removed radiator and blanked off pipe work. Because I knew I would need to drain the system again to move the pipework I thought I would try giving it a clean with X400.
On refilling the system I poured in two litres of X400 Sentinel into my F&E tank in the loft and filled the system as usual to allow it to do its work before draining down to do the necessary moving of pipework in a few weeks time after blanking off the pipes to the radiator I have just removed. First time I have used X400. System has had X100 in it before.
It's now been about 4 weeks since I drained the system to remove the rad and blank off the pipes.
One of the two radaitors in the lounge (downstairs) is now cold. Both inlet and outlet pipes are cold. I don't know when this first occurred. Checked that both the valves were open. Shut and opened them a couple times to make sure they weren't stuck but then they have not been touched for months so ther was no reason as to why they would have been shut
Last night I switched system off and bled offending radiator. Clear water came out. Wound out the bleed key too much and big jet of water accross the living room so I know there is flow into the radaitor. The outlet pipe from the rad was now slightly warm but the inlet pipe was cold. Again indicating flow into the radiator is happening but wrong way round.
Turned down the trvs on the majority of other radiators to try and see if that radiator would get hot after 10 mins.
Radiator still cold. Oh bother or words to smilar effect but not for forum use.
Get up this morning to discover another downstairs radiator is stone cold. Oh bother, again. Away to work so couldn't bleed it, joined up on here!
Questions.
Have I managed to free up the sludge using the X400 which has now decided to deposit itself in locations in the pipework which means I've got two cold radiators?
Or have I pulled in a bit of sludge from the F&E tank when refilling the system. I noticed it looked bad on puring in the X400, but to me it was no worse than before and it is always very soft sludge that easily breaks up when water enters via the cistern/ball valve to my mind not sufficient to cause a block somewhere.......?
Or have I just got an air lock in the system which I have partially moved around which is now affecting two radiators?
A wee bit of info on my system....
My system is a pig to drain.
System all off, I either shut the service valve on the inlet to my F&E tank or sometimes I shut the service valve on the outlet of my F&E tank before opening the drain.
The drain is located under the ground floor level so it is at the lowest point in the system. I open this and water comes out and quite quickly stops. When working on upstairs rads this is fine. This is how I drained it when I did the recent work. However when working on downstairs rads (which are above the level of the drain) there is still water in them. I had to fit a draw off valve to one of the downstairs radiators to allow me to drain the downstairs rads. This takes quite a while via a length of hose out the front door! The central heating drain can be lying open under the floor yet there is water in the radaitors above it and their bleed vents open!
My system is a pig to fill.
System off. It gets all sorts of air locks in the pipes. I can have a full F&E tank in the loft above my head then remove the upstairs bathroom towel rail bleed valve and peer into the radaitor and see it half full of water.
To allow me to re-fill the system with out problems I fill the system via the F&E tank and then bleed the radiators starting from downstairs working up. I then switch on the system but turn the boiler off so that the pump runs but the system is not heated. I then switch off the system and bleed. Do this twice and generally I get all the air out the system.
The plan when I get home is to do a full drain via the draw off valve and using the central heating drain point. Then re-fill.
If that doesn't work the plan is to remove one of the offending rads and flush the rad outside.
Both the offending rads are old ones and have original trvs fitted.
Boiler fine, other radiators fine so it's not the pump/boiler/zone valves.
Any thoughts? Please let me know if you need any other info.
Many thanks
Andrew
