Oooops!! Shouldn't have tried to fix the heating!

[Thee_Psycho]

We moved in to our new house in May, and have only just recently turned the heating on. I have been downstairs to find it was seriously cold. Closer inspection revealed that the radiator in the living room needed bleeding, the one in the hall is working but rusty!

Worse case is the one in our kitchen, it was stone cold, I tried turning the valve at the end of the radiator to turn it up. Nothing happened, it was just turning round and round! I ended up taking th cover of and getting an adjustabel spanner to it, i turned it and hot water immedialty filled the pipe, passed the valve then spurted out on to the floor! The joint is leaking, I have tightened the valve back up bu its still dripping!

1) Is there anything I can do easily to fix this, the seal seems to be in place, can I get some magical tape/ gunk to sort it on a temporary basis? The radiator took quite a knock when we tried to get our washing machine past it, is it possible it just needs refitting or should i replace the whole valve?

As it looks like the radiator in the hall needs replacing and the one in the kitchen will need removing from the wall or the valve replacing can anyone tell me if

work with our current heating system. At the moment we have a thermostat in the hall that despite always been turned up the bedroom never gets any warmer, we were wondering while we have to drain the whole CH system if it was worth fitting them on a few key radiators? How would this conflict/ehance our current system.

Any advice greatfully recieved I know very little about plumbing, limit of my knowledge has got me in this mess!! A little knowledge is dangerous.

[BillR]

Is it where the valve connects to the feed pipe or where it connects to the rad? In either case you could try tightening the joint nut a little. You should hold the body of the valve with another spanner/wrench to stop it turning when you do this.

The big lesson here is to check out/maintain the CH in the summer when its easier to fix.

[Thee_Psycho]

Its leaking, at both ends now where the valve meets the radiator, tried tightening th nut but will little luck. Yes I realise now I should have checked the heating earlier, weird thing is when we viewed the house all the radiators worked, I made a point of checking them, and the survey didn;t flag anything dodgy up. Ho hum!

[Terry D]

What you really need to do is to drain the whole system, then replace the faulty valves and possibly also the rusty radiator. In order to ensure against leaks, use PTFE tape around all threads Then flush the whole system with clean water followed by a flushing agent (eg Fernox) to clean out the system (this may need to be left in for a few days - follow the instructions carefully). Then drain & flush the system again and refill, incuding a good anti-corrosion inhibitor (Fernox again?). The exercise is time consuming because you have to bleed all radiators at every refill, but it's really not that difficult. Make sure that you have a separate header tank for the heating system before attempting this. It's worth it in the end. BTW, have you considered a claim against the surveyor.

Terry D.

[Thee_Psycho]

instructions

Tempting to moan at the Surveyor, but I didn;t go for a full survey as the property was only 9 years old and is housing association property too, so something I should have checked myself. Think its looking like I will have to drain the whole system to replace the radiator and valve, but what is a header tank? I have my boiler in the kitchen, a hot water tank in the airing cupboard and a cold water tank in the loft. Or is my Cold water tank split in to two, wither seperate feeds for the heating and hotwater. I haven't paid much attention to it, since moving in. Sorry for the lack of detail!

[Lee Blaver]

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However, if one rad is rusty the rest might not be too clever either, so be prepared that flushing might find more leaks :( Which I suppose is a good thing, if you are ready to deal with them.

Lee

[BillR]

Its poss. you have a sealed system type boiler with no small header tank for the CH. This could be determined from the make & model of your boiler. Its seems the previous owner did look after the system very well as air seems to have got into it to cause corrosion. It ought not to cost very much to get it working ok but its a problem when the weather is getting colder and you need the heating on. Many modern boilers exercise the pump etc even in the summer to stop things seizing up.

[Terry D]

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The header tank provides feed/expansion for the primary (radiator circuit). You could possibly have a primatic hot water cistern, where the primary & secondary (hot water) circuits are separated by air pressure. Because of the risk of contamination, you can't use any chemicals with this type of system. 'Primatic' is a trade name of IMI - have a look to see if the cistern is marked.

Terry D

[Thomas Prufer]

You mean "Never summon Anything you can't banish", I guess...

Thomas Prufer