A
Andybrad
Ok a long story here. Ill split it up into a bit of background and where were at now.
/Background/
We moved into a new house in February last year. A detached house a bit bigger than our old 1 bed terraced. It was cold. The heating was on about 4:30pm and things wouldn’t start to get remotely warm till about 9pm. So the rad in the front room (furthest away from the boiler and where we are sitting) only got hot at the top. I took this to be possibly a blocked rad. Took it off and flushed it through with a hose in the garden. Got some black crud out of it and back on. Still the same. I then gave up and asked a heating “engineer” to pop round. He diagnosed the problem as a sticky trv valve. Drained the system and fitted a new one (plus a few more downstairs) the water while draining down the system didn’t look too black or anything so I thought nothing else of it. The engineer said the system was air locked. He diagnosed the problem as a loop above the diverting valve as shown here. So this time I asked him to fit a vent so we could bleed it and refill.
Heres a pic of the loop
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/...6101692336468939074&oid=108267992033991783465.
Ok so this was done and we start filling up the system again after the TRVs are installed. Can we refill it? Can we buggery. After half an hour of faffing it was decided to “back fill” using a hosepipe to one of the radiator take offs. Another half hour + later we had all the rads with some water (but not full) in them but it took another hour for the boiler to fire and warm the rads though. Like there was a massive air lock in the boiler and it was tripping out.
Once it got going we had a warm radiator in the front room about 2 hours after the boiler kicked in. this is the best its been. However the engineer is suggesting we now try a new pump to see if we can improve things.
After he had gone (the following week)I replaced the old pump with a variable speed wiko one. A slight improvement. However I couldn’t refill again. I ended up using an old fire extinguisher to force water down the cwf to the system. This worked and the system then filled.
/Background/
So its summer now and weve just had our first child. (a few weeks old) I need to get this sorted asap before the bad weather kicks in. (I don’t think a baby is going to like a 4 degC warm house!)
So the central heating is off at the moment. Ive got a weekend off baby duty to get this sorted so I need to hit it in one go. Im going to replace a couple of the woefully undersized rads (current output 1500 but required 4000btu) to try and improve matters. But the issue remains that were getting cold.
Nowthen another side to this is when the system goes onto heat the hot water we get massive “surges” of air it seems like. Im wondering if the vent to the hot water side (I can not see any vent on the rad side) is getting air pulled down it due to a blocked cold feed? As can be seen in this photo.
https://plus.google.com/photos/1082...6101692358935444402&oid=108267992033991783465
the cold feed comes from the loft and drops through the floor shown here
https://plus.google.com/photos/1082...6101913819630823602&oid=108267992033991783465
and feeds in under this pipe im pointing to.
https://plus.google.com/photos/1082...6101913822469059282&oid=108267992033991783465
at this point its slightly magnetic as well. This makes me think its partially blocked.
which then comes into this pipe back to the boiler
https://plus.google.com/photos/1082...6101913819831352578&oid=108267992033991783465
would there be any issue in cutting this out and capping it off then teeing into the last pipe shown from a vertical tee? Why does it turn under its self ?
ive asked the “engineer” to call out again and he doesn’t want to. And he admitted he doesn’t really know whats wrong.
Lastly any idea what this valve is for? Im guessing its for filling?
https://plus.google.com/photos/1082...6101913821000899714&oid=108267992033991783465
Anyways please help guys, I need to keep my family warm.
The full album can be seen here
https://plus.google.com/photos/108267992033991783465/albums/6101913436219624961
Many thanks
Andy
/Background/
We moved into a new house in February last year. A detached house a bit bigger than our old 1 bed terraced. It was cold. The heating was on about 4:30pm and things wouldn’t start to get remotely warm till about 9pm. So the rad in the front room (furthest away from the boiler and where we are sitting) only got hot at the top. I took this to be possibly a blocked rad. Took it off and flushed it through with a hose in the garden. Got some black crud out of it and back on. Still the same. I then gave up and asked a heating “engineer” to pop round. He diagnosed the problem as a sticky trv valve. Drained the system and fitted a new one (plus a few more downstairs) the water while draining down the system didn’t look too black or anything so I thought nothing else of it. The engineer said the system was air locked. He diagnosed the problem as a loop above the diverting valve as shown here. So this time I asked him to fit a vent so we could bleed it and refill.
Heres a pic of the loop
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/...6101692336468939074&oid=108267992033991783465.
Ok so this was done and we start filling up the system again after the TRVs are installed. Can we refill it? Can we buggery. After half an hour of faffing it was decided to “back fill” using a hosepipe to one of the radiator take offs. Another half hour + later we had all the rads with some water (but not full) in them but it took another hour for the boiler to fire and warm the rads though. Like there was a massive air lock in the boiler and it was tripping out.
Once it got going we had a warm radiator in the front room about 2 hours after the boiler kicked in. this is the best its been. However the engineer is suggesting we now try a new pump to see if we can improve things.
After he had gone (the following week)I replaced the old pump with a variable speed wiko one. A slight improvement. However I couldn’t refill again. I ended up using an old fire extinguisher to force water down the cwf to the system. This worked and the system then filled.
/Background/
So its summer now and weve just had our first child. (a few weeks old) I need to get this sorted asap before the bad weather kicks in. (I don’t think a baby is going to like a 4 degC warm house!)
So the central heating is off at the moment. Ive got a weekend off baby duty to get this sorted so I need to hit it in one go. Im going to replace a couple of the woefully undersized rads (current output 1500 but required 4000btu) to try and improve matters. But the issue remains that were getting cold.
Nowthen another side to this is when the system goes onto heat the hot water we get massive “surges” of air it seems like. Im wondering if the vent to the hot water side (I can not see any vent on the rad side) is getting air pulled down it due to a blocked cold feed? As can be seen in this photo.
https://plus.google.com/photos/1082...6101692358935444402&oid=108267992033991783465
the cold feed comes from the loft and drops through the floor shown here
https://plus.google.com/photos/1082...6101913819630823602&oid=108267992033991783465
and feeds in under this pipe im pointing to.
https://plus.google.com/photos/1082...6101913822469059282&oid=108267992033991783465
at this point its slightly magnetic as well. This makes me think its partially blocked.
which then comes into this pipe back to the boiler
https://plus.google.com/photos/1082...6101913819831352578&oid=108267992033991783465
would there be any issue in cutting this out and capping it off then teeing into the last pipe shown from a vertical tee? Why does it turn under its self ?
ive asked the “engineer” to call out again and he doesn’t want to. And he admitted he doesn’t really know whats wrong.
Lastly any idea what this valve is for? Im guessing its for filling?
https://plus.google.com/photos/1082...6101913821000899714&oid=108267992033991783465
Anyways please help guys, I need to keep my family warm.
The full album can be seen here
https://plus.google.com/photos/108267992033991783465/albums/6101913436219624961
Many thanks
Andy
