Hi This is my first post so bear with me.
My father in law turned his central heating on a couple of weeks ago and has told me its not working properly. He's got 3 rads downstairs and 4 upstairs. The boiler is downstairs, the hot water tank and pump are upstairs and there is an expansion tank in the loft. When i checked it, the tank in the loft had 6 inches of hot water in it and the ball valve was working ok.
He has a service contract with SWALEC to look after his boiler so he had someone from SWALEC come round and look at the problem first, they told him the boiler was working fine but there was a blockage in the system somewhere and they would flush it out for £499 (+vat).
Not suprisingly he asked me to have a look at it.
I checked all the rad bleed valves and let a bit of water out of each one to make sure there was no air in the rads. Then i have flushed out all the rads by using closing the LSV and opening the drain valve, emptying the rad then closing the drain valve & re-opening the LSV to fill the rad back up. Doing this several times has flushed out loads of black sludge and the water is now running clear from each rad.
I can get hot water to flow out of each rad when i flush them out but as soon as i close the drain valve and open the LSV the rad starts going cold again so it seems like water isnt flowing round the system properly.
I ave also noticed that the flow and return pipes on all radiators except one are all hot. One rad has a hot flow and a cold return pipe so i'm guessing this is where the problem is.
Does anyone have any advice on what my next move is?
I'm thinking i should remove the rad where the problem is and try the bucket test to see if there is a blockage in the TRV or return pipework.
Any thoughts or advice would be welcome.
Thanks
Gary
My father in law turned his central heating on a couple of weeks ago and has told me its not working properly. He's got 3 rads downstairs and 4 upstairs. The boiler is downstairs, the hot water tank and pump are upstairs and there is an expansion tank in the loft. When i checked it, the tank in the loft had 6 inches of hot water in it and the ball valve was working ok.
He has a service contract with SWALEC to look after his boiler so he had someone from SWALEC come round and look at the problem first, they told him the boiler was working fine but there was a blockage in the system somewhere and they would flush it out for £499 (+vat).
Not suprisingly he asked me to have a look at it.
I checked all the rad bleed valves and let a bit of water out of each one to make sure there was no air in the rads. Then i have flushed out all the rads by using closing the LSV and opening the drain valve, emptying the rad then closing the drain valve & re-opening the LSV to fill the rad back up. Doing this several times has flushed out loads of black sludge and the water is now running clear from each rad.
I can get hot water to flow out of each rad when i flush them out but as soon as i close the drain valve and open the LSV the rad starts going cold again so it seems like water isnt flowing round the system properly.
I ave also noticed that the flow and return pipes on all radiators except one are all hot. One rad has a hot flow and a cold return pipe so i'm guessing this is where the problem is.
Does anyone have any advice on what my next move is?
I'm thinking i should remove the rad where the problem is and try the bucket test to see if there is a blockage in the TRV or return pipework.
Any thoughts or advice would be welcome.
Thanks
Gary
