HELP PLEASE :)

[JW1]

Hi,

I could do with some help regarding my hot water and heating, however I do not have the greatest knowledge of plumbing or central heating systems.

The heating in my house never seems to get very hot at all. The upstairs gets to an acceptable standard, however all of the downstairs never even get warm. Also, if the hot water is turned on then absolutely none of the radiators get hot.

I had a look on YouTube at a few videos and it said to balance the radiators by turning the lockshield valve all the way off, and then opening them half a turn. I did this, and the upstairs rads are still hot but the downstairs are just the same. I have bled all of the rads and there is no air in any of them.

Then I had a look at the F & E tank in the loft, and the water in there was completely brown and there was a load of sludge at the bottom. I couldn't find a drain off point on my house so I had to tie up the ballcock with a piece of string and used a jug to empty the tank and cleaned it thoroughly. I then poured a bottle of Sentinel X100 inhibitor into the tank and let it fill back up. Next, I went to one of the cold downstairs rads and drained out roughly 4 litres from the rad and the water from the F&E tank then started to filter through the system, however this still did nothing. This may have been the wrong way of doing it, but not having very good knowledge of central heating systems it was the best I could really do.

The central heating hasn't really worked very well for the past couple of years, but with it only just starting to go cold at night we've only just had to start putting the heating on again, however the boiler has recently started to sometimes flash red with an F appearing on the screen, which probably means there is something wrong with the boiler but I'm unsure if doing something else to the central heating system may cure this without having to get a plumber to have a look at it.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Many Thanks

 

[dilalio]

Based on your above description, you really need a heating engineer in as this is quite an important aspect of your living comfort and is not like learning how to put up a shelf!
I know it costs money but it really is a bit more involved than put tab A into slot B!

 

[FiremanT]

Your basic problem could be the pump or a partially blocked anti-gravity valve (in the absence of a better description)

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

By that description you may have well poured the X100 down the drain, sounds like it's gone well past that stage. Without much more detail on your system it is impossible to say exactly what needs to be done, the problem could be one component, several components, a design fault, or the system is simply gunged up through lack of maintenance.

As already suggested, rather than keep throwing good money after bad, bite the bullet and get someone in. If you put up your location, there maybe a local person on here that could have a look for you.

 

[Doggit]

Your system is very likely sludged up, and will need cleaning out. Now you could do the same trick as the X100 with X400 sludge cleaner, but you then need to take the rads off one at a time, take them in the garden, and flush the sludge out. Now the problem, is that you've very likely got sludge in the pipes as well, and that's a job for someone more experienced.

Then you put the X100 in the system after it's been refilled, and then you balance the radiators.