Taking a newish rad off on Saturday for decorating purposes. I've done
this on two other rads (installed at the same time) without any
problems. Installed along with new boiler 2 years ago.

This time I closed the lock valve, applied pressure to the nut to turn,
bracing the pipe as usual and a small jet of water suddenly started
shotting out from the compression joint securing the lock valve to the
supply pipe.

Oh bugger thinks I. Sealed combi fed system. First instinct is to
wrap something round it, this proves to be entirely inefectual as you'd
expect on a leak at around 1.5 bar.

So my second instinct is to sticka towel round it and take the
pressure out of the system. So I turn the boiler off then suddenly
realise that I have no idea whether there is any kind of pressure
release valve I can just open, so opt for opening a bleed valve on the
hall rad. Enduring the scalding hot water and capturing the resultant
high pressure spray in a bucket I gather my wits a little and pass
bucket duty over to the wife.

I go back to the ofending valve and thinking 'kill or cure' nip up the
compression joint a bit more. Joy of joys the spray turns into a
trickle. Another screeching, elbow poppin nip and the flow stops.

So I plug up the other rad and check teh pressure, seems to be as near
to 0 bar as the gauge on the boiler can cope with.

So now three options:
~ Emergency plumber - costly, and I may have fixed it anyway.
~ Wait until the week and book a plumber - No hot water or heating for
a few days and I might have fixed it anyway.
~ Repressurise system slowly and see what happens - if it holds consult
the diy newsgroup on Monday.

It's monday so it doesn't take a genius to work out which option I went
for.

I re-pressurised the system very slowly, gradually bleeding air out of
various rads and slowly adding more until it was up to 1 bar. Normal
cold pressure for my system.

The dodgy joint has started weeping. By now I'm feeling very cavalier
so give it another tweak. I now notice that the entire joint rotates
on the pipe. I'm sure that's not right.

Only one more tweak was required once the system was fully heated and
back up to 2 bar.

So I'm having a plasterer in tomorrow and I'll be wanting to fit the
rad back on in a week or 10 days. So I'm mulling my options?

1) Drain system, re-make compression joint
2) Find plumber - throw money at him and ask him to sort it out.
3) Give it a final tweak and if it holds leave it and hope it doesn't
suddenly fail just as I've got all teh decoration and new carpets
fitted.

And to assist in the decision, our first child is due on the 13th
March, so I'm racing to get everything finished.

Also, this part of the installation is only two years old. We had a
one year warranty on the parts and workmanship. Does the rotating
valve indicate poor workmanship or do they all do that? I'm surprised
given that I can't really turn it any more, it's as tight as I can get
it. In this case if it is demonstrably poorly installed I might see if
I can pursuade the installer to do the work as a goodwill gesture.

Sorry for the long post, I do ramble.

thanks in advance

--
Steve F