Drained central heating, wont fill up again
 

Fixed a leaky ball cock value and then drained the central heating to
clean it out as there seems to be a blockage in the downstairs radiator
(in the kitchen).

There was sludge in the header tank which has filled back up again, no
longer overflowing as it did with the broked valve. However the
radiators are not filling with water and when i turned on the hot water
the pump was dry running.

How can i get the water circulating again! I think the header tanks
sludge has caused a new blockage... though i added the chemiclas to
clean the sludge... will it unblock overnight!


Any help gratefull recieved!

A cold showered cheesy toastie!

cheesey_toastie wrote:
Fixed a leaky ball cock value and then drained the central heating to
clean it out as there seems to be a blockage in the downstairs radiator
(in the kitchen).

There was sludge in the header tank which has filled back up again, no
longer overflowing as it did with the broked valve. However the
radiators are not filling with water and when i turned on the hot water
the pump was dry running.

How can i get the water circulating again! I think the header tanks
sludge has caused a new blockage... though i added the chemiclas to
clean the sludge... will it unblock overnight!

Airlock? Google the archives of this group for solutions - comes up
regularly

David

Lobster wrote:

cheesey_toastie wrote:
Fixed a leaky ball cock value and then drained the central heating to
clean it out as there seems to be a blockage in the downstairs radiator
(in the kitchen).

There was sludge in the header tank which has filled back up again, no
longer overflowing as it did with the broked valve. However the
radiators are not filling with water and when i turned on the hot water
the pump was dry running.

How can i get the water circulating again! I think the header tanks
sludge has caused a new blockage... though i added the chemiclas to
clean the sludge... will it unblock overnight!

Airlock? Google the archives of this group for solutions - comes up
regularly

Seconded, but it could also be a blockage due to gunge which has got into
the system in which case you can blast it out by judicious application of
mains pressure into the system at appropriate point and possibly closing
off other parts of the system.

On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 22:45:23 +0000, John Stumbles wrote:

Lobster wrote:

cheesey_toastie wrote:
Fixed a leaky ball cock value and then drained the central heating to
clean it out as there seems to be a blockage in the downstairs radiator
(in the kitchen).

There was sludge in the header tank which has filled back up again, no
longer overflowing as it did with the broked valve. However the
radiators are not filling with water and when i turned on the hot water
the pump was dry running.

How can i get the water circulating again! I think the header tanks
sludge has caused a new blockage... though i added the chemiclas to
clean the sludge... will it unblock overnight!

Airlock? Google the archives of this group for solutions - comes up
regularly

Seconded, but it could also be a blockage due to gunge which has got into
the system in which case you can blast it out by judicious application of
mains pressure into the system at appropriate point and possibly closing
off other parts of the system.

I'd put a bet in there being a partial blockage where the feed pipe joins
the circuit, enhanced by the arrival of more sludge.


--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at http://www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html

In article .uk,
Ed Sirett wrote:

I'd put a bet in there being a partial blockage where the feed
pipe joins the circuit, enhanced by the arrival of more sludge.

I'll nip down the bookies and put a few bob on
the airlock being in the pump. :-)
It's what happened here, and the OP has already
noted that the pump is running dry.... which is
slightly dodgy if left more than a few seconds.

--
Tony Williams.

In article . com,
cheesey_toastie wrote:
Fixed a leaky ball cock value and then drained the central heating to
clean it out as there seems to be a blockage in the downstairs radiator
(in the kitchen).

There was sludge in the header tank which has filled back up again, no
longer overflowing as it did with the broked valve. However the
radiators are not filling with water and when i turned on the hot water
the pump was dry running.

How can i get the water circulating again! I think the header tanks
sludge has caused a new blockage... though i added the chemiclas to
clean the sludge... will it unblock overnight!

Common way is to use mains pressure water back up the drain cock via a
hose. But many drain cocks leak from the body when doing this so be
prepared for a mess. ;-) You'll also need a helper to watch the header
tank and say when it starts filling.

But I hope you've got all the gunge out first. ;-)

--
*The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"cheesey_toastie" wrote in message
ups.com...
Fixed a leaky ball cock value and then drained the central heating to
clean it out as there seems to be a blockage in the downstairs radiator
(in the kitchen).

There was sludge in the header tank which has filled back up again, no
longer overflowing as it did with the broked valve. However the
radiators are not filling with water and when i turned on the hot water
the pump was dry running.

How can i get the water circulating again! I think the header tanks
sludge has caused a new blockage... though i added the chemiclas to
clean the sludge... will it unblock overnight!


Any help gratefull recieved!

My system does the same - just connect hosepipe to drain point and slowly
introduce water 'till it comes out the header overflow, then bleed rads as
normal

Regards Jeff

Cheers for all the replies, i will try this! The thing that scared me
was that whilst i knew the Central heating wasnt working and not to
turn that on, i didnt realise that we'd have no hot water!

I hope that pump didnt run dry too long! It was making a thumping
noise and got very warm! I thought that the hot water for your tank
was mains fed (off teh main cold water tank)... How would I have
introduced air into this (seperate?) system!

CheeseyToastie

cheesey_toastie wrote :-

snip
... How would I have
introduced air into this (seperate?) system!

Its not seperate, the water going through your rads also goes through the
coil in your hot water cylinder

Regards Jeff

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
cheesey_toastie wrote:

Cheers for all the replies, i will try this! The thing that scared me
was that whilst i knew the Central heating wasnt working and not to
turn that on, i didnt realise that we'd have no hot water!

I hope that pump didnt run dry too long! It was making a thumping
noise and got very warm! I thought that the hot water for your tank
was mains fed (off teh main cold water tank)... How would I have
introduced air into this (seperate?) system!

CheeseyToastie

What do you mean by "no hot water"?

When you open a hot tap, do you get:
* water, but it's cold?
* nothing?

If the former, this is to be expected because the water from the boiler
circulates through the indirect coil in the hot water cylinder to heat the
water. No working boiler/pump= no hot water.

If the latter, you've clearly got more than one problem!
--
Cheers,
Set Square
______
Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is invalid.

Set Square have water, cold... we've turned off the Hot water so not to
run the pump dry (as it was running for 40mins).

I think the header tank is sludged as i shovelled out a half bucket of
sludge as I drained the system which must have blocked up!

We'll try blasting mains up the drain pipe and also through the header
to system pipe.

In article .com,
cheesey_toastie wrote:
Set Square have water, cold... we've turned off the Hot water so not to
run the pump dry (as it was running for 40mins).

I presume you mean on the central heating programmer?

The 'hot' water should still run, but be cold. Most would fit an immersion
as a back up for just this situation.

I think the header tank is sludged as i shovelled out a half bucket of
sludge as I drained the system which must have blocked up!

You've had an (expensive) lesson about the need for inhibitor and the need
to change it regularly.

We'll try blasting mains up the drain pipe and also through the header
to system pipe.

I wish you well. I'd be thinking about removing all the rads and flushing
them separately.

--
*Not all men are annoying. Some are dead.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Set Square have water, cold... we've turned off the Hot water so not to
run the pump dry (as it was running for 40mins).

I think the header tank is sludged as i shovelled out a half bucket of
sludge as I drained the system which must have blocked up!

We'll try blasting mains up the drain pipe and also through the header
to system pipe.

Thanks everyone for the help... we now have water running through the
central heating again!

We tried flushing mains through the drain outlet, which indeed did leak
from the body (Its my mums house and she did the usual fretting to aid
the situation)! This didnt seem to fill the up stairs rads up so we
tried the same technique trhough the header tank, which after a few
burts did dislodge the sludge enough to get the cleaner that we'd added
running through.

With any luck this should clear our blocked system and we wont have to
flush rads!

Cheers again everyone, I'm off for a shower!

ct

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...


Common way is to use mains pressure water back up the drain cock via a
hose. But many drain cocks leak from the body when doing this so be
prepared for a mess. ;-)

If this happenes I have stopped the mess by removing the screw and blocking
the screw hole with a finger :-)

Sparks...

In article ,
Sparks wrote:
Common way is to use mains pressure water back up the drain cock via a
hose. But many drain cocks leak from the body when doing this so be
prepared for a mess. ;-)

If this happenes I have stopped the mess by removing the screw and
blocking the screw hole with a finger :-)

Trouble is you'll still get some spillage when attempting to re-fit the
screw. Best method I've found is to wrap the screw in a generous amount of
PTFE tape. Better still, replace the damn thing with a proper one with a
gland.

--
*If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

More trouble!
The heating now works, as does the hot water but the hot water is
making lots of noise, it seems to to be coming from the Tank area
(where the pump is :( ). Could I have introduced air into this system
when i messed about with flushing the central heating?

We did try and open a value on the boiler, is this how I've done it!

ct