No heating on the ground floor

[shopwherever]

Last November, we had a loss of heat to the ground floor radiators and British Gas engineer suggested a power flush. Then we called the local plumbers (who originally installed us a brand new Worcester Bosch boiler two years previously).

So after reporting the problem last year the local plumbers only changed one of the pipes in the airing cupboard somewhere around the pump and how water cylinder. They showed us the pipe afterwards and it was almost totally blocked with black stuff. They did not do the power flush as they said the radiators and pipe system are old (20-ish year old), and all they did was to add Inhibitor and Sentinel X200 to the system. The job they did seemed more or less OK, just one of the radiators on the ground floor (furthers away) was always worm-ish, rather than hot.

Now, a year later - we have exactly the same problem - no downstairs heating! I have shut down all the radiators on the first floor, yet the ground floor radiators good few hours later are only lukewarm. The main pump seems to work, I can hear the noise and flow through the pipes around it.

In your opinion:

- should we do the power flush?
- is there any alternative to it (ie: chemicals) ?

The house has:

First floor - 4 radiators + 2 towel rail radiators (which do heat up if open)
Ground floor - 5 radiators (4 get lukewarm if the above are shut, the furtherest one is cold)

Any suggestion or recommendation will be greately appreciated!

 

[Armo74]

Firstly you could start by checking any TRV valves(if you have any) are opening properly by removing the heads and pushing the pins up and down. Then you could give balancing the system a try, if you look in the FAQ's there is a description on how to do it.

 

[JohnD]

turn off ALL the hot radiators. Do the cold ones now heat up?

was your heating system altered or extended since the house was built?

I am going to guess that your boiler does not have a pressure gauge and is filled from a feeed and expansion tank in the loft. How full is it, and is how deep is the mud at the bottom? Is it cold or warm?

how often do you bleed your radiators?

was a system filter fitted after the powerflush? did the plumbers offer an opinion on the cause of the sediment?

 

[ianmcd]

was a system filter fitted after the powerflush? did the plumbers offer an opinion on the cause of the sediment?

The OP hasnt had a powerflush he is asking if we would recommend having one done

 

[JohnD]

right, sorry.

doesn't mention a chemical clean either, but X200 suggests they found evidence of limescale.

 

[shopwherever]

turn off ALL the hot radiators. Do the cold ones now heat up?

was your heating system altered or extended since the house was built?

I am going to guess that your boiler does not have a pressure gauge and is filled from a feeed and expansion tank in the loft. How full is it, and is how deep is the mud at the bottom? Is it cold or warm?

how often do you bleed your radiators?

was a system filter fitted after the powerflush? did the plumbers offer an opinion on the cause of the sediment?

I have not had a PowerFlush and am asking if we would need one.

BTW:

- the system has not been extended
- yes, there is an expansion tank in the loft
- all radiotors are bled yesterday

All the plumbers did last year was to remove and change one of the pipes near the pump which was heavily clogged. They did not use chemical clean, just added the inhibitor and X200 into the system.

 

[JohnD]

feed and expansion tank in the loft. How full is it, and is how deep is the mud at the bottom? Is it cold or warm?

how often do you bleed your radiators?

 

[shopwherever]

feed and expansion tank in the loft. How full is it, and is how deep is the mud at the bottom? Is it cold or warm?

how often do you bleed your radiators?

Just checked:

- expansion tank 2/3 full
- couple of cm of mud on the bottom, but the feeding pipe is not blocked
- inside water is cold

Radiators are bled couple of time a year, last time yesterday.

Also, I checked with the strong magned the pipes around the pump. They do attract the magnet, althought they were changed last year!

Overall problem is getting increasingly worse. We had normal heating last week, then couple of days ago started to weak off, then yesterday I shut all upstairs radiors to got just some wormth downstairs. Today did the same thing, and one of the radiotrs downstairs is stone cold, others lukewarm.

 

[ianmcd]

A PROPER powerflush and the addition of a system filter would solve your problem but finding someone to do it properly is different thing altogether, your system sounds as though you have loads of magnetite in it and just running a powerflush machine for a few hours wont do much good the complete system must be chemically softened and vibration agitated then power flushed and then inhibitor added sadly very few of the companies that carry out powerflushing actually do it correctly

 

[HERTS P&D]

Fit a Magnaclean near the return pipe work of the boiler.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Magnaclea...arden_Hearing_Cooling_Air&hash=item337d437f4e

And clean weekly.

This will be a start!

Andy

 

[shopwherever]

Fit a Magnaclean near the return pipe work of the boiler.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Magnaclea...arden_Hearing_Cooling_Air&hash=item337d437f4e

And clean weekly.

This will be a start!

Andy

Thanks for the suggestion, but I have to resume the heating to the ground floor first. Also, can fitting magnaclean be a DIY job?

 

[HERTS P&D]

DIY job, yes if you can drain down your heating and cut the pipe work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II4gtjCAxxs

Andy

 

[JohnD]

turn off ALL the hot radiators. Do the cold ones now heat up?

 

[shopwherever]

turn off ALL the hot radiators. Do the cold ones now heat up?

First floor - 4 radiators + 2 towel rail radiators (which do heat up if open)
Ground floor - 5 radiators (4 get lukewarm if the above are shut, the furtherest one is cold)

Earlier I closed all apart the last one. Then it did warm up, othervise is stone cold.

 

[JohnD]

Earlier I closed all apart the last one. Then it did warm up, othervise is stone cold.

Then you have flow through all the rads. You do not have a (total) blockage. You do need to Balance the radiators. You might need to turn up the pump speed.

I would suggest you balance the rads first; then fit a system filter, then do a chemical clean, then on final fill add X100 corrosion inhibitor; X200 for limescale breakdown, and the new X900 which will loosen remaining sediment so that the particles circulate in the water and can be trapped by the filter. You leave all these chemicals in permanently. Bale out all the mud from the F&E tank before you start work and scrub/wipe it clean. Fit a lid and insulating jacket of not already fitted.

I'm not keen on the Magnaclean, although it is spectacularly fast at trapping circulating black sludge particles, I think the Spirotech or Sentinel System filter, both made of brass not plastic, are better made and a similar price.