First of all I know very little about boilers, so please be patient!

Having got a decorator to remove and drain out a radiator so as he could
paint behind it, on reconnecting and turning the hot water inflow back on,
we noticed the pressure on the system drop from about 1.2 to almost zero.
This didn't surprise him as basically we took out a fair proportion of the
water in the system (total of 4 radiators in our flat).

Problem is now we can't see away of replenishing the water back in.
Examining the pipe work underneath the boiler, the chap helping me saw that
the two pipes to the RHS of the photo below should be connected by the
flexible silver pipe just hanging over it!

http://www.philrichards1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Boiler.jpg

At that point he gave up and said to get expert advice! Fortunately we have
a fixed service contract with British Gas who only 7 months ago carried out
a service check and presumably this didn't appear out of the norm. They are
due out Monday morning.

On speaking to someone else, from my descriptions he reckoned the system is
sealed. There is no water tank in the loft, all water comes in from the
mains and he reckoned sometimes once a boiler like this is set up and the
system filled up with water, often the water supply is disconnected.

So my questions a

1. The boiler seems to run OK on a much lower pressure, with the radiators
at their normal heat. The only difference is you can hear air in the
system. Is it safe to keep the system running this until the engineer comes
out Monday, especially as the current cold weather is forecast for the
weekend?

2. How on earth is a system supposed to be refilled easily when radiators
are drained out? Or is there another way of allowing mains water into the
system.

3. How easily would it be for the engineer to get the pressure back? I only
hope that especially as British Gas have already examined the system (on
two occasions, once after it developed a fault, the other a service check)
they will not say I've tampered it or it is a design fault.

Many thanks.

--
Phil Richards
London, UK
Home Page: http://www.philrichards1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk