Radiator doesn't work

[GB]

Radiator doesn't work. It did work last winter, but it's not been working for the last few months. I at last got round to bleeding it, but there's no air in it. One inlet pipe is warm, but the other is cold. Both taps are on.

My guess is that the taps were turned off in the summer, and they've been turned on now, but the jumper (the bit with the washer on, is that the right name?) has stayed jammed closed. What's the best way to free this without draining the whole system down?

Thanks for any help

[Bob Minchin]

Pipe freezer?

[John]

If you went through the depths of winter before even trying to bleed it - do you really need it?

[Toby]

To test your theory, turn off one of the valves and see if water comes out the bleed screw, if it does, then turn the one that is on, off, and the other one on - if you are getting water from both then the problem is elsewhere... (You need to bleed off a good amount, not just a couiple of ml - I would suggest about half a glass of water to be sure) (you may have to top up the system if it is a pressurised system, via the filling loop on or near the boiler.

Make sure you count the turns on the lock-shield valve (the one that you don't usually turn off) because they should all be set to a certain posistion to balance the system (this could be why this rad is not working, if all the other ones have just been tuned on full)

Another ting to try is to turn all the other rads off on one valve, and see if this makes the one that is not working, work - If so, then the problem is you need to blance the system (or the crud in the pipe has now shifted!)

Toby...

[GB]

Okay, so it's not the valves...

I'll try that in the morning. Thanks for all the helpful advice.

[spamlet]

Note that it can be a tiny fraction of a turn on the lock shield end that turns it from off to on. Some of ours quite frequently 'turn off' but just need maybe 1/8 turn to get them going again. If you open too much at once you may have to go round resetting all the rads.

Also, you didn't say if there was a 'thermostatic' valve on the other end. The pins in the middle of these always tended to get stuck if anyone turned the valve right down. Then it would take removal of the cover and a sharp tap on the pin to make it pop up again: we replaced with ordinary valves in the end. Probably not your situation but...

Oh, and before you tear your hair out wondering why rads won't balance: if you have a 3 port valve that swaps you back and forth between CH, HW and the mid point: check to see it's not stuck in the mid point and thus not giving you the same pressure you had when the rads were originally balanced. We've had to replace three of the motorised actuators that control these valves, and they don't come cheap: but we spent an awful lot of time trying to balance rads before we discovered this.

S