Hotel central heating query

[cjuk]

I was on a wc float valve fix job today when the hoteliers told me about the radiators not getting that hot upstairs, this place has 3 floors with 12 rooms and a good 16-17 radiators in the property. The rads at the top of the hotel are just cold and the next floor down they get hotter on the lower half of the rad and seem hottish on the ground floor. The boilers gravity fed and they said its only 4-5 years old but the rads are a good 20 years old. I didnt really know what advice to give them an said i would look into it to try an help them,im not a gas engineer either so didnt know that much about the boiler,do you think theres just to many rads for the boiler? Or is it a balancing issue? Or could the system just have lots of sludge init and need flushing? They said they had a engineer come round and put some cleaning treatment in the feed tank and left it in there months ago and a couple of the rad valves started to leak recently,any ideas?

 

[stevetheplumber]

has anyone vented the rads?

 

[WHPES]

I assume that it was inhibitor put into the tanks not system cleaner, or you will have problems!

Needs someone with experience to look at it.

 

[moogwai]

Have a look at the pump.....it might be undersized. I had a prob like this in a hotel in brum......they tried running 15 rads over 3 floors and it was a big place off a 15/60 grundfos......I changed it to a 25/60 ( I think...it was a light commercial pump) and it ran fine,also powerflushed it to make sure.
Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

 

[Barry98]

Am sure the gsr engineer will of sized the boiler / pump accorindly. Me personally I would power flush the system properly and not just use a bit of hosepipe. I'd guess the chemicals were inhibitor , remember aswell cjuk not all customers tell the truth. Did you drain the system ? What sate was the water in ? Have you put chemicals back in ?

 

[GQuigley67]

can you powerflush jobs as big as this with a normal domestic sized machine ?

 

[Barry98]

If it were me I'd split it into zones and attach valves if there's no existing , will also help in winter when there quiter and maybe don't need the top floors

 

[moogwai]

i did the one in brum no problem with my kamco cf90.

 

[GQuigley67]

what type of pipework is it ? is it mild steel ?

 

[Barry98]

i did the one in brum no problem with my kamco cf90.

How many floors and rads , if you don't mind me asking

 

[moogwai]

3 floors,15 rads. i think it coped as the pump was situated on the 2nd floor so didn't have a great vertical height to climb.

 

[Barry98]

cool something to remember , ive got the kamco aswell

 

[cjuk]

It was system cleaner put into the system afew months ago,altho after chatting to the customers yesterday i did get a phone call today asking me to drain the system and put inhibiter in,they said they ad tried bleeding the radiators but couldn't get no air out. They said they've add afew differant plumbers and engineers in and they all say differant things about it,they even said the plumber what put the cleaner in said to expect problems or rads to start leaking,dunno about that,i've not heard of that after putting cleaner in. I will advise that maybe a powerflush might be a good idea,thanks for all ur replies by the way.

 

[stevetheplumber]

reason i mentioned bleeding is the symtoms are classic of a blocked cold feed or froozen ballvalve and water level drops did they have water on the rads ?are there trvs on rads? not unheard of to have several stick especially if theyve been shut down tight in unused rooms

 

[moogwai]

reason i mentioned bleeding is the symtoms are classic of a blocked cold feed or froozen ballvalve and water level drops did they have water on the rads ?are there trvs on rads? not unheard of to have several stick especially if theyve been shut down tight in unused rooms

does sound like blocked cold feed if not getting any water coming to rads when bleeding. would be a good idea to check this first.

 

[cjuk]

No theres no trvs there just 15mm lockshield valves on all rads,the last plumber was suppose to ave bled all rads after the cleaning solution was added,round there sunday anyway when mst of the guests are gone so got afew things to try and maybe talk to them about some of the suggestins on here,thanks for all your replies everyone