Radiator doesn't work. It did work last winter, but it's not been working
for the last few months. I at last got round to bleeding it, but there's no
air in it. One inlet pipe is warm, but the other is cold. Both taps are on.

My guess is that the taps were turned off in the summer, and they've been
turned on now, but the jumper (the bit with the washer on, is that the right
name?) has stayed jammed closed. What's the best way to free this without
draining the whole system down?

Thanks for any help




--
Electric cars are very healthy - when the battery runs out you have to walk
home.

GB wrote:
Radiator doesn't work. It did work last winter, but it's not been working
for the last few months. I at last got round to bleeding it, but there's no
air in it. One inlet pipe is warm, but the other is cold. Both taps are on.

My guess is that the taps were turned off in the summer, and they've been
turned on now, but the jumper (the bit with the washer on, is that the right
name?) has stayed jammed closed. What's the best way to free this without
draining the whole system down?

Thanks for any help




Pipe freezer?

"Bob Minchin" wrote in message
...
GB wrote:
Radiator doesn't work. It did work last winter, but it's not been working
for the last few months. I at last got round to bleeding it, but there's
no
air in it. One inlet pipe is warm, but the other is cold. Both taps are
on.

My guess is that the taps were turned off in the summer, and they've been
turned on now, but the jumper (the bit with the washer on, is that the
right
name?) has stayed jammed closed. What's the best way to free this without
draining the whole system down?

Thanks for any help




Pipe freezer?

If you went through the depths of winter before even trying to bleed it - do
you really need it?

"GB" wrote in message
...
Radiator doesn't work. It did work last winter, but it's not been working
for the last few months. I at last got round to bleeding it, but there's
no air in it. One inlet pipe is warm, but the other is cold. Both taps are
on.

My guess is that the taps were turned off in the summer, and they've been
turned on now, but the jumper (the bit with the washer on, is that the
right name?) has stayed jammed closed. What's the best way to free this
without draining the whole system down?

Thanks for any help


To test your theory, turn off one of the valves and see if water comes out
the bleed screw, if it does, then turn the one that is on, off, and the
other one on - if you are getting water from both then the problem is
elsewhere... (You need to bleed off a good amount, not just a couiple of
ml - I would suggest about half a glass of water to be sure) (you may have
to top up the system if it is a pressurised system, via the filling loop on
or near the boiler.

Make sure you count the turns on the lock-shield valve (the one that you
don't usually turn off) because they should all be set to a certain
posistion to balance the system (this could be why this rad is not working,
if all the other ones have just been tuned on full)

Another ting to try is to turn all the other rads off on one valve, and see
if this makes the one that is not working, work - If so, then the problem is
you need to blance the system (or the crud in the pipe has now shifted!)

Toby...

Toby wrote:

To test your theory, turn off one of the valves and see if water
comes out the bleed screw, if it does, then turn the one that is on,
off, and the other one on - if you are getting water from both then
the problem is elsewhere... (You need to bleed off a good amount, not
just a couiple of ml - I would suggest about half a glass of water to be
sure) (you may
have to top up the system if it is a pressurised system, via the
filling loop on or near the boiler.


Okay, so it's not the valves...



Make sure you count the turns on the lock-shield valve (the one that
you don't usually turn off) because they should all be set to a
certain posistion to balance the system (this could be why this rad
is not working, if all the other ones have just been tuned on full)

Another ting to try is to turn all the other rads off on one valve,
and see if this makes the one that is not working, work - If so, then
the problem is you need to blance the system (or the crud in the pipe
has now shifted!)

I'll try that in the morning. Thanks for all the helpful advice.




Toby...

--
Electric cars are very healthy - when the battery runs out you have to
walk home.

"GB" wrote in message
...
Toby wrote:

To test your theory, turn off one of the valves and see if water
comes out the bleed screw, if it does, then turn the one that is on,
off, and the other one on - if you are getting water from both then
the problem is elsewhere... (You need to bleed off a good amount, not
just a couple of ml - I would suggest about half a glass of water to be
sure) (you may
have to top up the system if it is a pressurised system, via the
filling loop on or near the boiler.


Okay, so it's not the valves...



Make sure you count the turns on the lock-shield valve (the one that
you don't usually turn off) because they should all be set to a
certain position to balance the system (this could be why this rad
is not working, if all the other ones have just been tuned on full)

Another ting to try is to turn all the other rads off on one valve,
and see if this makes the one that is not working, work - If so, then
the problem is you need to balance the system (or the crud in the pipe
has now shifted!)

I'll try that in the morning. Thanks for all the helpful advice.

Note that it can be a tiny fraction of a turn on the lock shield end that
turns it from off to on. Some of ours quite frequently 'turn off' but just
need maybe 1/8 turn to get them going again. If you open too much at once
you may have to go round resetting all the rads.

Also, you didn't say if there was a 'thermostatic' valve on the other end.
The pins in the middle of these always tended to get stuck if anyone turned
the valve right down. Then it would take removal of the cover and a sharp
tap on the pin to make it pop up again: we replaced with ordinary valves in
the end. Probably not your situation but...

Oh, and before you tear your hair out wondering why rads won't balance: if
you have a 3 port valve that swaps you back and forth between CH, HW and the
mid point: check to see it's not stuck in the mid point and thus not giving
you the same pressure you had when the rads were originally balanced. We've
had to replace three of the motorised actuators that control these valves,
and they don't come cheap: but we spent an awful lot of time trying to
balance rads before we discovered this.

S