one stone-cold radiator

[jinks67]

Hi,
First, brief apologies for the simplicity...I'm a bit clueless when it comes to plumbing.

I live in a rented ground-floor apartment (so all the radiators on on the same level). Gas boiler (central heating only) is in the garage below.

We had our old boiler changed 3 months ago. Prior to this all radiators were working fine. Two weeks after the boiler was installed, a gas engineer came round to "switch it on" and do all the temperature settings. Since then, two of our three radiators work fine, but the bedroom radiator is stone-cold.

The bathroom radiator is almost directly above the boiler. In the garage, the pipes leading up to this radiator are clear to see. The radiator in the main room is, I guess, only a few metres away. This also works fine. The bedroom is further away again and is absolutely stone-cold. We had problems a few years back with this radiator which turned out to be a faulty pump, but we had sorted the problem, and it ran fine before the new boiler was installed.

Its a complicated situation as the company that installed the boiler say it is a radiator problem and will not come out to investigate (they are based in my landlord's hometown, one hour away). Equally, I'm not very diy orientated and am reluctant to tackle a big job myself. However, neither do I want to pay a fortune (even if we are reimboursed) for somebody to come out and open a valve or two!

Even though I'm sure there is no thermostatic valve on the radiator (its a simple open/close head) I did as the company suggested by phone, and tapped the inlet valve head lightly. Nothing. Valve is fully open. Bleeding the radiator did nothing (in fact, there was no air, just water). Very occasionally there is a tiny gurgle but nothing much. Inlet and outlet pipes are stone cold too. In the cupboard in the front room there are four copper pipes which run along the wall - I assume two for the radiator in the front room, two for the bedroom. Top two are hot, bottom two cold. These can be traced back into the garage, where the bottom two are still cold, even next to the boiler.

Any ideas?
Could the lockshield valve have been closed to change the boiler and not reopened? If so, why are the pipes cold all the way up to the boiler? More importantly, could it have caused any damage?
Is it possible that the pipes are not connected to the boiler properly? (I assume not and that somewhere the four pipes lead into two pipes - its not possible to see).
Could it be a pump problem, as before? Boiler doesn't seem to be noisy though.
Any other possibilities?

Many thanks...I'm getting tired of being told to tap the non-existant thermostatic valve!

Jinks

 

[tryitandsee]

Phone the Landlord back up and explain that you have hit the valve with the hammer , as told to do, but you think you may have cracked the valve and water is now leaking. That may get him back in a hurry.

It will probably be just an air lock, but it's his problem to sort out.

 

[bengasman]

We had our old boiler changed 3 months ago. Prior to this all radiators were working fine. Two weeks after the boiler was installed, a gas engineer came round to "switch it on" and do all the temperature settings.

i have a pretty good idea what the problems is.
for reasons of libel, i will have to put it like this:

my guess is:

the guys that actually did the installation were not corgi registered at all, but complete cowboys.

the "gasengineer" who came to switch it on was a completely unscrupulous cowboy who probably is registered, but will be prosecuted and probably chucked of the register if it can be proven that he is signing off dodgy installations.

both your landlord and the builder who pulled the trick are open to serious fines.

don't touch anything yourself, call corgi tomorrow morning and explain about the 2 week delay between installing and the so called switching on.
i think you can even call anonymously if you want.
you won't get any difficult questions, they will know exactly what is going on.

 

[jinks67]

Whoah, slow down.
I'm based in France so its slightly different rules here.

Guys fit the boiler...
(that's a whole other story and involved two different boilers as the first one didn't conform legally to the garage set-up). But this was August when it was warm!

Gas man comes (whole other company) to switch on the boiler for the first time, do all the settings and check all legally conforms etc... this guy is our version of the CORGI man (who didn't allow the first boiler). 10-15 days is the normal waiting time (it was the same to get the gas turned on when I moved into the appartment). Anyhow, I told him about the one radiator at the time and he said he'd call the installers for me.

Original plumber/installer didn't call back. I phoned him. He said try tapping the valve. I phoned again. He said try bleeding. I phoned again. He said try tapping the valve. I said "done that remember", he said he'd phone back from office to arrange a time to come round. No contact. I phoned office. Secretary said "not our responsibility...boiler works fione and that's the radiator". Partner phoned. Same response. Phoned landlord. He phoned company. I assume same response yet again as hone message from Landlord today said "tap the radiator valve".

Tomorrow I call plumber...then I think bill goes to Landlord to be reimboursed before xmas or next rent cheque goes unpaid!
Unbelievable...where I come from, you start a job, you finish it. Anyhow, its just I'm getting tired of the cold, and if i can solve it by opening a valve that would be nice!

Anyhow, thanks for the concerns...

 

[bengasman]

did not spot the france bit.
totally different ball park, but....
very strong consumer protection as far as i know.
should be possible to get local mediation or something like that
for more precise info, find french version of diynot.
probably on minitel

 

[jinks67]

No worries...

landlord is pretty decent, he's just based a bit far away to be able to stop by for a quick look...(guess he might be changing his usual plumbers from now on though).

Back to the original question... any other possibilities?

Thankfully, an airlock sounds like a reasonably quick job for someone to tackle eventually (its mighty chilly over here at the moment) - and I guess wouldn't technically be the fault of the boiler installers either (given that they couldn't see that until the gas-man'd switched it all back on again).

Cheers
Jinks

 

[tryitandsee]

Try all the suggestions in the FAQ's on here. Have you tried to turn off all radiators that are warm/hot, leaving the cold one open and hopefully push the airlock along. It's the French water, to bloody clean!!!!!!!

 

[jinks67]

Thanks all,

I tried some but not all of the ones under "radiator problems" - question of confidence really (if I mess up, I pay rather than the landlord!) but I think I can have a go at releasing the airlock - I guess I should expect some gurgling?!

 

[jackthom]

I apologise if I'm stating the obvious here but have you made sure both valves on the radiator are open. It's more than likely that all radiator valves were closed down when the installers were working on the system and it's easy to overlook the lockshield valve.