I need to drain the system down to do some pipe work to move an upstairs radiator but i have not got any draining points. I'm told a quick way is to remove a downstairs radiator screw on some kind of valve to the radiator feed pipe and fix a hose to the other end. Despite looking i have never seen such a valve, can anyone tell me if they exist and where to get one.
Occasionally one comes across systems with no drain points - or defective drain points.
The procedure is to firstly drain the lowest radiator: turn it off both ends and empty its contents by opening the union between the radiator and one of the valve. The the radiator is removed.
What you do next will depend on the type of radiator valve you have. The two most likely cases are you have something which you can connect
15mm pipe to - in which case you supply one back nut and olive. The 15mm pipe will be good to attach to a hose in some way.Or you will have a coupling there are two ways you could go about joining to to this: Either a 3/4" female threaded fitting or extract the other end of the coupling out of the radiator and then you will a 1/2" threaded connector which a 1/2 female fitting to 15mm compression (say) will let you attach a
15mm pipe and a hose.If you have something of a height drop on the hose you may be able to get the hose 'syphon' or 'draw' much of the water out of the pipe work this should make the installation of a drain point easier.
Or install a self cutting tap of the type used for washing machines as a drain point.
... and use an old washing machine hose to drain the system... neat.
The hole made by these taps is pretty small - OK when fed with mains pressure but as a draining method it might be quite slow. Or are you suggest doing this as a one off prior to installing a more effective drain?
Just as a one off - many of them are pretty large an ugly for a permenent fix, but they are easy to attach a hose to.
My own preference is to install a permenent hard piped drain through a wall into a suitable gully, with a screwdriver operated service valve. That way you can drain down cleanly and neatly without need of hoses or leaking drain taps.
Agreed. And you can fill the system without bleeding. Then open the valve(s) to do a pretty good "poor man's powerflush" using the air pressure stored in each radiator to drive the crap out of the circuit with attitude.
close the feed valve first, then close off all the rad valves including the one you want to work on so the rads dont drain out, then perpare to open the line with a five gallon plastic drum ready to stick into the pipe to take the water. Find a spot high enough off the floor to do this and you wont have much of a mess. Have a supply of rags in place to mop up. finally open the rad you want to remove and it will drain out the same way and dont forget to instal a drain valve before you connect up again. Its only a pound or two.
Please tell us more! How do you get enough air pressure in the radiators.
MBQ
snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote: >
dont mind him. he is talking through his hat.
Simply fill the system but don't bleed the rads. The open the valve and get a lot debris out along with a lot of water. Works best if you use full bore valves connected to the 22mm part of the circuit.
If you have an open vented system you can do a surprising amount of work on the pipes without draining at all, if you get a pair of "Drayton Drain Easy" plugs (or make up your own equivalent). These are used to block the vent pipe and the feed out from the header tank, then you can cut into a 15mm pipe low down in the system and install a drain valve. Only a cup full or two of water has escaped when I have done this, the natural vacuum holding back the rest in the system contents.
Same principle for disconnecting 'live' radiator valves. Maybe you should try it on one of those first, then if there is something about your system that prevents the vacuum from developing, you can just tighten up the valve again and use Ed and John's advice.
Drayton Drain Easy Kit
If you decide to close off both radiator valves, do make a note of the LSV settings so you can restore the balance setting after, just in case your system is actually balanced. If not, see
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