Will tiny leak fix itself?

[Martin Pentreath]

Hi,

Just put up a new radiator, a hulking great vertical thing that was a bugger, mainly through being so heavy. Now I've just noticed that there is a teensy leak where one of the tails goes into the rad. I guess I didn't tighten it enough (it's got PTFE tape on it). The only way to fix it would be to drain the rad, get it back off the wall and take an allen key to it. It's dripping at the rate of about one drip every two minutes (probably even slower). What are the chances of it healing itself? Maybe I should encourage a little sludge build up!

Cheers,

Martin

[Ian Stirling]

Why can't you just give it another fraction of a turn?

[Dave Fawthrop]

|!Hi, |! |!Just put up a new radiator, a hulking great vertical thing that was a |!bugger, mainly through being so heavy. Now I've just noticed that |!there is a teensy leak where one of the tails goes into the rad. I |!guess I didn't tighten it enough (it's got PTFE tape on it). The only |!way to fix it would be to drain the rad, get it back off the wall and |!take an allen key to it. It's dripping at the rate of about one drip |!every two minutes (probably even slower). What are the chances of it |!healing itself? Maybe I should encourage a little sludge build up!

Small Central heating leaks normally heal themselves after a few weeks. Tie a bit if rag round the leak and let the water evaporate. If it has not cured itself when you turn the central heating off for the summer *do* something.

[Jon Telfer]

Mine did this. My tails connect to a tap-like valve and when I tightened the connection on this it turned the tail out of the radiator. Fix was to loosen the connection to the valve, get a suitably thin wrench to tighten the tail back up and then tighten the valve again whilst trying to hold the tail still.

Hopefully that makes perfect sense.....

Jon

[Roger Hunt]

In article , Martin Pentreath writes

I recently put in a load of convection piping, with a radiator, up to the hot water tank, and a couple of the PTFE'd joints wept a wee bit but they did settle down by themselves after a week or two.

[Roger Mills]

Because the hex socket for the allen key is *inside* the tail - and so can't be got at without disconnection. There's probably not enough exposed tail to grip it on the outside - and even if there were, the stilsons or whatever would mangle the chrome finish more than somewhat!

[hzatph]

You could try introducing some leak sealer into the system - all you need is access to the headertank (remove some water first) or any radiator that you can ratially drain enough to get stuff in the top vent. That should seal it fine.