Question about a single pipe heating system

[joey117]

I have a single/one pipe heating system in my house and there is one radiator that does not get warm useless you wait a hour + , I have tried swapping a radiator for another known good radiator and the only difference I can see is the pipe work going into the radiator one pipe is straight and The other pipe as a S bend is that enough of a change to stop the radiator working ?

 

[kidgreen61]

Ask yourself if it ever worked properly?
If it did, what has changed?

 

[joey117]

The problem is that the raditor had a leak when i move it and i ever got to see the old raditator working .

 

[Madrab]

Single pipe systems need very careful balancing to get right to ensure that the system heat's up evenly. They take a looong time to get right.

The other pipe as a S bend

Actually yes - it can adds resistance to something that is already very sensitive to flow. Hopefully it is a pulled offset rather than a soldered one?

 

[joey117]

 

[Madrab]

OK - it's still vertical and I would presume up above the single main pipe, so that should be fine.

Not touching the lockshield valves on any of the other rads, shut down the TRV/Wheel head valves leaving the troublesome radiator on - does it then heat up ok?

 

[joey117]

When that radiator is the only one on in the house it's still takes hours to come up to temperature , The only way I can affect how quick it heat up is to turn the Hot Water cyclinder off the closer it is to off the quicker it hates up , even if I put the hot water Gate Valve at quarter turn it still takes a very long time for it to heat the rad up and I make very little hot water.

 

[Madrab]

So has this always been the case with this one radiator?

 

[joey117]

Whenever I bought the house the radiator on that wall was leaking so i have seen it not working , whenever we went to repair the fault we put a bigger radiator on one pipe was moved (Staight pipe ) and one pipe which modified (S bend ), and it had this problem

 

[joey117]

just on a quick 15-minute Testing on the System by turning on two radiators that are exactly the same radiators and the same size one in the kithen and one in the living after 15 mins and kithen is 54c and the living room is 38c

 

[Madrab]

we put a bigger radiator on one pipe was moved

Were these kept directly above the one pipe or were the pipes positions changed? Was it performed by someone that was well versed in one pipe systems?

I had to change an old one pipe system last year to a 2 because some muppet installer came in, put a new boiler in and replaced all the radiators for new one of different sizes and ended up adding extra lengths of feed pipes etc that knocked the whole system out. it was easier to re-pipe to a 2 pipe that it was to try and redo the feeds on the one pipe as it was all S/S.

 

[Elsa TLC]

It's worked... so.this suggests thst it's got a bypass.

Lift the floor there you will find the bypass and fit a gate valve between the to feeds into the radiator. Throttle this down until the heat diverts through the radiator.

 

[joey117]

to be honest I have no idea how much the guy is with single pipeline systems, but I will not be getting them back considering he flooded my bedroom my living room and my Hall

 

[Elsa TLC]

to be honest I have no idea how much the guy is with single pipeline systems, but I will not be getting them back considering he flooded my bedroom my living room and my Hall

Most probably the right thing, but maybe not yo harsh on the fella as we deal with people's crap historic plumbing week in week out. Sometimes it catches us out..

 

[joey117]

i understand but when you destroy over £3,000 + worth of stuff still demand to be Paid and with no compensation for the damage you cause it is hard. From the pumbler side i hate that side for the business dealing with poeple i am a mechinic and it is the worst part of my job .