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Before I call in the plumbing cavalry I thought I'd ask the collective wisdom of the forum.....
So I have an open vented heating system, boiler (potterton suprima, I know terrible things) and HW cylinder are on the ground floor, loft holds the CW tank, on a plinth, and the F&ET on the loft floor.
For some time now I have been having to bleed a heated towel rail on the first floor pretty much every other day as within 48 hours the top 3 or 4 inches remain cold. Lots of air out and 100% warm again. All other rads are fine, although recently there has started some water hammering noise, but they do not appear to need bleeding. There is also another towel rail upstairs (at the same height as the rails are taller than the rads) but that also remains 100% warm. On the ground floor there is water fed underfloor heating, which gets hot so I am assuming all good there.
In an attempt to understand how air is getting into the system, today I isolated the ball valve in the F&ET and put a bottle over the vent pipe to see if it was pumping over. Left it a few hours (heating on throughout) and there was nothing in the vent pipe bottle, but the F&ET had dropped around 4 inches.
So I can only presume there must be a leak somewhere and possibly a bad one given how much water has disappeared in a matter of hours. However, there is zero signs of leaks anywhere. Nothing around rads, nothing in the attic, nothing in boiler cupboard, no damp patches on walls, etc .... Nothing has been done to the house recently that could have disturbed anything to cause a leak.
Any thoughts, or do I need to get in the guys with the thermal imaging? It is a stone floor downstairs so cannot be lifted. The fact the air always goes to the one towel rail, does that help identify the suspect? I presume not. If it helps that towel rail is directly above the boiler so I suspect is first on the upstairs circuit.
If any more info would be helpful, I will try and give what I can, this is not exactly my area of expertise!!
Cheers
Steve
So I have an open vented heating system, boiler (potterton suprima, I know terrible things) and HW cylinder are on the ground floor, loft holds the CW tank, on a plinth, and the F&ET on the loft floor.
For some time now I have been having to bleed a heated towel rail on the first floor pretty much every other day as within 48 hours the top 3 or 4 inches remain cold. Lots of air out and 100% warm again. All other rads are fine, although recently there has started some water hammering noise, but they do not appear to need bleeding. There is also another towel rail upstairs (at the same height as the rails are taller than the rads) but that also remains 100% warm. On the ground floor there is water fed underfloor heating, which gets hot so I am assuming all good there.
In an attempt to understand how air is getting into the system, today I isolated the ball valve in the F&ET and put a bottle over the vent pipe to see if it was pumping over. Left it a few hours (heating on throughout) and there was nothing in the vent pipe bottle, but the F&ET had dropped around 4 inches.
So I can only presume there must be a leak somewhere and possibly a bad one given how much water has disappeared in a matter of hours. However, there is zero signs of leaks anywhere. Nothing around rads, nothing in the attic, nothing in boiler cupboard, no damp patches on walls, etc .... Nothing has been done to the house recently that could have disturbed anything to cause a leak.
Any thoughts, or do I need to get in the guys with the thermal imaging? It is a stone floor downstairs so cannot be lifted. The fact the air always goes to the one towel rail, does that help identify the suspect? I presume not. If it helps that towel rail is directly above the boiler so I suspect is first on the upstairs circuit.
If any more info would be helpful, I will try and give what I can, this is not exactly my area of expertise!!
Cheers
Steve
