Unsure how to sort radiator situation... help?

[Fishwalker]

Hi guys!

Please can anyone give me there opinion on a few related radiator situations I and other half now have, while we try and find a plumber we can trust. (I find it so hard finding good tradesmen who won't just get us to spend the earth for some reason).

So we have taken our single finn radiator off the wall, to have our plasterer skim behind. While it's been off, there has been continuous dripping from the main valve at the top (see photos), which we've stemmed with a cloth and have a bowl underneath.

We are thinking that while we are busy refurbishing this room and before fitting new laminate, we may want to replace the radiator because a/ it's a single fin and we have double finns in other rooms (albeit still fairly old), b/ the valves are old and the thermostat valve thing doesn't work (though nor does our boiler very well, or the main thermostat on the wall in the hall - it is just a screw on the wall we turn on and off!!!! No temperature rating! Our house was a student house once and we are limited in funds. c/ I would quite like a vertical column radiator, as we want to put our sofa along this wall when we are finished and could do without a radiator blocking wall space.

So I want opinions on why the valve might be leaking (novice DIYers here), what we need to buy and change to resolve that in the mean time?

Also if we get a vertical radiator, from looking at the photo, can anyone comment on where the pipes would be best extending to and, I assume I will need a plumber for installing that and extending pipework? But anyone know a ball park figure for such a job?

Also when we drained the current radiator, lots of black sludge was coming out when draining last of water. We have had a boiler engineer out before who said we could do with a power flush but it may not solve things for long, as our pipes are too thin(10mm) and sludge builds up quicker in them + our boiler is temperamental and the pressure switch keeps getting gunked up every few months (which is resolved currently by just flicking it to unstick). Boiler is a SIME Friendly format 80E about 10years old.

Also the upper pipe to this radiator is wobbly in the wall, which again is a tad worrying, as it goes through the architrave and under plaster, down the side of the door (cue damage to freshly skimmed wall to fix and worrying when thinking of changing radiators.

Basically it's just peril after peril with our 110 yr old ex bodge job student house and we have no real funds for serious work or tradesmen really, so anything we can do for ourselves, we like to do!

Radiator Overview

• Fishwalker
• 14 May 2012
• 1

Here you can see that the radiator is removed and you can see the freshly plastered wall with...

Radiator valve

• Fishwalker
• 14 May 2012
• 1

This is a close up of the leaky upper radiator valve. The white pipe is wobbly in the wall going...

 

[Dan Robinson]

I am about to ppost some unpleasant thoughts - but you have until I get put of the bath to brace yourself.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Well, for a start - you don't get a plasterer in BEFORE a7sing about with the rads.

Lesson number one. Pipes and wires go UNDER the pretty stuff. If you want to move them; do it first!

Lesson number two. Vertical rads look nice, but give off less PRACTICAL heat than their horizontal counterparts.

Lesson number three. Laminate floor is the smelly cheese from behind the devil's foreskin.

Lesson number four. Your boiler is the spawn of said devil's dangle berries. If it was student digs, it was never maintained. Change it.

Lesson number five. Sh1tty student houses with sh1tty student house boilers and going to be full of sh1tty rad sludge. Change the boiler when you can.

Lesson number six. There is nothing friendly about a SIME Friendly Format 80E. In fact try identifying the right version for parts. Even SIME can't do it Change it.



Your existing valves are ancient, and not all trvs turned off properly by design. Yours are probably just fooked.

Before you go spending money on plasterers, decide what you are doing with rads and pipes FIRST.

 

[Fishwalker]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the honesty there!

Well yeah you probably have valid points on everything you said there.

Thing is we have the house now and bought off another 1st time home owner couple, at the top of the housing bubble in 2007 (lucky us) but are happy sticking with it for now. It was a student property before that I think but in fairness, they did have the roof redone properly and our home survey at the time said we had a reasonable property for the age + it has nice period features.

We haven't bought any laminate flooring yet, so that's not a done deal but were going for Quickstep if we did. We got the 4 walls skimmed for £180 by a friend who's a plasterer, as they were horrendously lumpy.

All this started with us just wanting to get round after 5 years, to dealing with the draughty gaps in the floorboards and heat loss in the house, where gale force winds come up the boards in winter and through kitchen cabinets etc. E.g. you can't sit at the table without totes toasties on!

Despite the fact that we could sand them down as we did upstairs, we have been worried about the the fact that there is 2-3ft crawl space below and it is very cold and we don't have the cash for insulating between joists, pulling all boards up. Simples.

My other half is looking at getting a new boiler and we have so far had a quote for £1500 including fitting, as they need to route the gas pipe outside the house for some reason.

Is there anything inherently wrong with having 10mm pipes around the house? If I get a new boiler and get the system power flushed, will that likely get rid of the black sludge, or if its in there, does that mean, we need all the pipes ripping out? Seems a bit extreme that when it all does work. We have 7 radiators in the house altogether.

I don't need a vertical radiator in this room but it would save space and just thought they looked nice.

Also do you know a reliable boiler brand then?

Also included is our lovely thermostat in the hall for another laugh!

Stupid Thermostat in Hall

• Fishwalker
• 14 May 2012
• 1

This is what we have to turn our central heating system on and off. It is in the hall. I recall...

 

[ChrisR]

YOur thermostat's a Honeywell, with the knob missing:
http://www.google.co.uk/products/ca...X&ei=puywT7jUEdSc8gPE5IiaCQ&ved=0CKQBEPMCMAQ#

There's plenty of boilers like yours around, they're plodding on like old cars, lots wrong with them but can usually be kept limping to another winter.

10mm pipe means microbore which tends to mean more problems, but if it's a sealed system ( no header tank eg in loft ) then it may not be very dirty. A new boiler doesn't replace grotty valves, pipes, rads, so often not the cureall people kinda hope for.

That drippy valve may be working just fine - they're designed to open when they get cold. You could get a plumbing fitting to screw on its exhaust..

Rads - they should be in scale with the needs of the space they're heating, so unless that room was cold, the same output again would be the right size to use.

I suggest you get yourself a DIY plumbing/heating book, & find out how your system was put in, lifting a few boards. That will inform your decisions, and not cost you a lot.

 

[Fishwalker]

Thanks Chris!

I have a plumber round this afty and he advised that we should have taken the radiator valve head off and screwed in some retainer type nut that would push down a pin inside and prevent the water dripping out, all before taking the radiator off. Anyway he advised getting a threaded cap manifold cover type thing for it meanwhile, which I did (a 3/4 thread) and some PTFE tape for inside the thread. I've screwed this on but is still dripping, though I don't have the strength of a man to tighten much! lol. Er also I think with the pin not pushed in, its a bit of a fail there.

Got a quote to run the 15mm piping on this radiator along the skirting a bit and would need to take architrave off side of door to get inside wall a bit, to fit a new radiator e.g. vertical column style. He said about 3 hours work and gave ballpark figure of £100 for the work and fitting. He said also that as long as the black gunk wasn't too much thicker than water, that it was fairly normal as its just stale water, so I need to ask my OH what it looked like. plumber also said thermostats where well old and e could just upgrade them and the room thermostat and said room thermo was in right place in hall (even though draughty) which was good to know. Finally he said my radiator in question looked like a single pipe system but on checking other radiators in the house, they were 2 pipe feeds so would be ok to upgrade.

Was a good guy I think and was free advice!

 

[Fishwalker]

Ok today we have more of a situation!

Last night OH put radiator valve back on as pictured but leak continued after a while and my end 3/4" manifold cap and PTFE tape didn't work (AT ALL). Today we have steady big drips every 4-5 secs and bowl fills up slowly but surely. My OH reckons he has bust the olive from trying to tighten things whilst tired after long day at work last night (12hrs).

Now OH has changed an olive before on another radiator and back then he fitted a new thermostatic valve that I got from B&Q.

Prob here is, the pipe goes inside the architrave and he is worried that he can't get the olive off without hacksawing it off, which he thinks will then prevent the radiator fitting back in place as the pipe will be a tad too short.

He is therefore getting me to find a radiator and get the plumber back today, BUT we are skint and I'm being made redundant next month and this is a BAD idea when said radiator was working fine before we took it off briefly to skim plaster room, just had no thermostatic valve to change temperature (so On or Off).

So we have a 15mm pipe going vertical up to valve and a 3/4" connector coming off at the right angle that connects to rad... Please can some nice person with knowledge of plumbing, advise if we can /a get the olive off without hacksawing e.g. tool we can buy or may have, or b/ hacksaw it off but somehow still connect rad e.g. extension bit nuts or washers or something and c/ suggest a decent thermostatic valve from one of the sheds or plumb centre places that we could fit tonight? P.S the pipe from the door architrave is bendy, as in not secured into plaster properly and this is also scaring the OH. He thinks it is too old but pipes don't bend when they are old do they? It is surely just what I said?

Any help to save cash here would be greatly appreciated?

 

[Fishwalker]

Well no reply to above but thought I'd update anyway, in case is helpful to anyone.

OH hacksawed old olive off just below it on the dodgy leaking valve and managed to re fit the old radiator.

Prob is there is now not quite enough pipe to fit to radiator and it is pulling on the connection a bit and therefore we don't want to fill it back up, as the drip has stopped and we will probably be inviting more trouble! We bought a £3.99 On/Off valve from B&Q to solve present issue.

Have had no hot water or central heating though for a week as whole system is off. Not sure now to isolate one radiator from rest of system.

We have now bought a new radiator though, which seems quite nice and is a horizontal column traditional style from B&Q. The Acova range. It is a 4 column, 600mm x 812mm and is rated at BTU: 4629. I have worked out using the B&Q BTU calculator that my room needs roughly 4200BTU's as is 3.665m long x 3.445wide and 2.65m high + a small under stairs section of about 0.97 x 0.99 x about 1.9m high.

Just need it installing now but a bit worried about the flushing and inhibitor stuff that the manufacturer recommends, as have never done this before with our present system, due to poor manual for our Sime boiler and not knowing any tech details on single fin basic radiators in house + being a first time home owner.

The saga continues...