Steven Oakes wrote:
Hi,
I wondered if anyone could advise. I've just had a man round from British
gas inspecting my central heating system after the radiators stopped
heating. The radiators were barely getting warm, some of them not heating
at all, and the upstairs ones were making trickling noises. I bled them
all - then water totally stopped circulating and a loud vibrating sound
could be heard which continued long after I turned the heating off.
He says the cold water inlet is blocked (sadly not covered by my 3 star
maintenance - which is just my luck!) - and the pipe needs to be cut and
flushed to clear it. He says it is not a big job and shouldn't cost much.
Do the symptoms and diagnosis makes sense?

Well it sounds almost identical to what we've been experiencing with our
system.

We kept it going for a while by topping up the water every couple of
days, via a convenient bung in the top of the bathroom towel radiator.
That novelty wore off eventually though, so we turned our attention to
unblocking the pipe, which we succeeded in doing eventually using
somewhat unconventional techniques...

I'll stop there though as this isn't uk.bodge-it-yourself :-)

Might be worth asking why it blocked up though. One chap we had look at
it (among several other amusing features of our CH system) suggested
that the cold pipe routing was partly to blame (something about it
dipping down before connecting into the boiler feed at the pump).

Perhaps like-for-like replacement isn't the best option?

Jim