as it's started cooling, it won't be long till we need to fire the heating up ...
Is it advisable to bleed the radiators before the system gets fired up ? Or let it run a couple of times and then bleed. Or both ?
I would probably do both but ours don't seem to collect air in use although the system is a nightmare after it has been drained down.
When it first runs any gases will probably get shifted to the usual places they collect. After it has been off again for a while they should be settled enough to bleed off to greatest effect.
I hope you have better luck than me, when I came to bleed mine I found that the bleed valves were corroded shut. Had to take one of the rads to a metal engineering shop to get the valve replaced.
Ours was like that, I re-arranged things a little and put an air-separator (one of those copper swirl-pot types, with inlet and outlet on opposite sides at different levels, a vent-pipe connection on the top and the feed from the header tank tee'd into the outlet) before the pump - it's worked brilliantly (due to the existing arrangements, the pump is the highest point besides the header tank and used to collect a lot of air after a drain-down).
SteveW
Ideally you should drain the system. Add a system cleaner, fill it up, circulate for a couple days (longer the better), drain down again. Flush through with tank feeding or filled from fill loop and drain open. Then fill up again, adding inhibitor. Again, ideally this should be done every year just before it get really cold and you 'need' those rads working!
G'luck, D.
We have an air separator of some sort. Fitted in a very difficult to access position behind the hot water cylinder. I spent a lot of time siphoning out sludge and now the whole system works a lot better.
Is that an air separator or a bleed point? It's just that your mention of being hard to access suggests a bleed point, the air separator type are plumbed in and vent through the normal vent pipe over the header tank of a vented system - no access required.
SteveW
Cannot remember the make and cannot see the name with it all in situ. Pretty blue colour. Looks like a Myson Aerjec 2. Has flow in, flow out, water supply and vent pipe so not just a bleed point. It was full of sludge. In view of the difficulty in accessing it I had to siphon it out after disconnecting the water supply pipe at the isolating valve a few inches above the separator.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.