Radiator not working

B

Ballyman

Registered User
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280
Hi

One of the radiators in the dining room is only lukewarm when all the others are piping hot. It was like this last year and I never did anything about it but it seems to be much much worse now. I mean it's just over room temperature now.

I bled it and this wasn't the problem. Someone mentioned to me that it may need to be balanced. How do I do this and will I make a bags of the others if I do? Also, if it was balanced incorrectly then shouldn't the others be at different temps as well?

Also, is there anything else it could be and if so, how do I fix it?

Thanks.
 
I suggest you call the professionals in for this, could be a messy job for someone who doesn't know what they are at.
 
It's a plumbed central heating system. I do not have thermostats on the rads either. They have an open/close valve at one side and what I believe to be the balancing valve at the other.

The rad is second closest to the boiler also. I turned off all the other rads in the house to see if this would heat up the rad but the temp difference on the faulty rad was negligible.

Do I need aplumber or is there something I can do myself to sort this out?
 
Try this. Close all radiators (preferably without disturbing the balancing valve if you know for definite which side it is on)
Fully open the 2 valves (do not worry about the balancing for now) of the non working rad and turn on your boiler.
Double check for air by bleeding/
Does it get hot?

If yes, system balancing seems to be the problem.
If no, then it is more serious. You will need professional help,
 
I had a similar problem to this. We took off the rad, took it outside and flused it out... still no improvement. closed all other rads and then it heated... slowly opened all other rads and they seemed to rob some of the heat from dodgy rad but was still nice and warm/hot.
Balancing seemed to be the problem until the next day that heating went on and the original problem occured again.

A number of plumbers had a look and could not figure it out. Recently got a new boiler and plumber told me that the expansion vessel (looks like and odd shaped football) was not big enough for size of house. He changed that and everything is working again.

If all fails, perhaps get plumber to check out expansion vessle (cheap enough).

Hope that helps.
 
Is it filling up with Water when you bleed it? I had a similar problem with the rads on the top floor not heating. There is a valve in the hot press which he turned that put pressure on the water and it solved the problem. I knew which valve it was but when turning it came to some resistance so did not force it as did not want to break it. Turned out I needed to put more muscle into it - best though to get a reliable plumber to look at it.
 
bacchus said:
Try this. Close all radiators (preferably without disturbing the balancing valve if you know for definite which side it is on)
Fully open the 2 valves (do not worry about the balancing for now) of the non working rad and turn on your boiler.
Double check for air by bleeding/
Does it get hot?

If yes, system balancing seems to be the problem.
If no, then it is more serious. You will need professional help,
Click to expand...

Hi

I turned off all the rads except the faulty one and it heated up properly. I turned back on the other rads again and it stayed hot.

The following day when the timer came on again it heated up to piping hot again so I presumed all was fixed. Two days later and I'm back to square one again. Do I have a balancing issue? Why did it heat up for three days but go back to normal again after that? When I say normal, I mean it's lukewarm again. Not as cold as it was previously but much much cooler than the rest.

Thanks
 
If it was a simple balancing problem, i do not think that i would work for 3 days and not after. it would simply do not heat up properly from day1.
It seems like a strange problem...
Could it be an air lock in the system?
 
bacchus said:
If it was a simple balancing problem, i do not think that i would work for 3 days and not after. it would simply do not heat up properly from day1.
It seems like a strange problem...
Could it be an air lock in the system?
Click to expand...
I have the same problem too. I recently got a gas conversion in the house ( it was oil previously ). the gas fitter blanked off the pipes to the back boiler when fitting the gas fire. I am told that this might affect the heating of the offending rad? the rad has just been fitted in the garage conversion, the pipes were just laying there before the conversion so i just connected them up to the new ( offending ) rad. A plumber told me that this rad is the last one on the system, whereas before the gas conversion it was the first one on the system! even with the heating on for hours it never heats up fully. I have tried bleeding and balancing for hours on end with no affect whatsoever!
Any ideas anyone? please!!!!
 
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