Thee_Psycho wrote:
"Terry D" wrote in message
...
Thee_Psycho wrote:
"BillR" wrote in message
...
Thee_Psycho wrote:
We moved in to our new house in May, and have only just recently
turned the heating on. I have been downstairs to find it was
seriously cold. Closer inspection revealed that the radiator in
the living room needed bleeding,
the one in the hall is working but rusty!

Worse case is the one in our kitchen, it was stone cold, I tried
turning the valve at the end of the radiator to turn it up.
Nothing happened, it was
just turning round and round! I ended up taking th cover of and
getting an adjustabel spanner to it, i turned it and hot water
immedialty filled the
pipe, passed the valve then spurted out on to the floor! The joint
is leaking, I have tightened the valve back up bu its still
dripping!
Where is it leaking?
Is it where the valve connects to the feed pipe or where it
connects to the rad?
In either case you could try tightening the joint nut a little.
You should hold the body of the valve with another spanner/wrench
to stop it turning when you do this.

The big lesson here is to check out/maintain the CH in the summer
when its easier to fix.

Its leaking, at both ends now where the valve meets the radiator,
tried tightening th nut but will little luck. Yes I realise now I
should have checked the heating earlier, weird thing is when we
viewed the house all the radiators worked, I made a point of
checking them, and the survey didn;t flag anything dodgy up. Ho hum!

What you really need to do is to drain the whole system, then
replace the faulty valves and possibly also the rusty radiator. In
order to ensure against leaks, use PTFE tape around all threads
Then flush the whole system with clean water followed by a flushing
agent (eg Fernox) to clean out the system (this may need to be left
in for a few days - follow the instructions carefully). Then drain
& flush the system again and refill, incuding a good anti-corrosion
inhibitor (Fernox again?). The exercise is time consuming because
you have to bleed all radiators at every refill, but it's really not
that difficult. Make sure that you have a separate header tank for
the heating system before attempting this. It's worth it in the
end. BTW, have you considered a claim against the surveyor.

Terry D.

Tempting to moan at the Surveyor, but I didn;t go for a full survey
as the property was only 9 years old and is housing association
property too, so something I should have checked myself. Think its
looking like I will have to drain the whole system to replace the
radiator and valve, but what is a header tank? I have my boiler in
the kitchen, a hot water tank in the airing cupboard and a cold water
tank in the loft. Or is my Cold water tank split in to two, wither
seperate feeds for the heating and ho****er. I haven't paid much
attention to it, since moving in. Sorry for the lack of detail!

Its poss. you have a sealed system type boiler with no small header tank for
the CH.
This could be determined from the make & model of your boiler.
Its seems the previous owner did look after the system very well as air
seems to have got into it to cause corrosion. It ought not to cost very much
to get it working ok but its a problem when the weather is getting colder
and you need the heating on.
Many modern boilers exercise the pump etc even in the summer to stop things
seizing up.