Drained central heating, wont fill up again

Fixed a leaky ball c*ck value and then drained the central heating to clean it out as there seems to be a blockage in the downstairs radiator (in the kitchen).

There was sludge in the header tank which has filled back up again, no longer overflowing as it did with the broked valve. However the radiators are not filling with water and when i turned on the hot water the pump was dry running.

How can i get the water circulating again! I think the header tanks sludge has caused a new blockage... though i added the chemiclas to clean the sludge... will it unblock overnight!

Any help gratefull recieved! A cold showered cheesy toastie!

Reply to
cheesey_toastie
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Airlock? Google the archives of this group for solutions - comes up regularly

David

Reply to
Lobster

Seconded, but it could also be a blockage due to gunge which has got into the system in which case you can blast it out by judicious application of mains pressure into the system at appropriate point and possibly closing off other parts of the system.

Reply to
John Stumbles

I'd put a bet in there being a partial blockage where the feed pipe joins the circuit, enhanced by the arrival of more sludge.

Reply to
Ed Sirett

I'll nip down the bookies and put a few bob on the airlock being in the pump. :-) It's what happened here, and the OP has already noted that the pump is running dry.... which is slightly dodgy if left more than a few seconds.

Reply to
Tony Williams

My system does the same - just connect hosepipe to drain point and slowly introduce water 'till it comes out the header overflow, then bleed rads as normal

Regards Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

Cheers for all the replies, i will try this! The thing that scared me was that whilst i knew the Central heating wasnt working and not to turn that on, i didnt realise that we'd have no hot water!

I hope that pump didnt run dry too long! It was making a thumping noise and got very warm! I thought that the hot water for your tank was mains fed (off teh main cold water tank)... How would I have introduced air into this (seperate?) system!

CheeseyToastie

Reply to
cheesey_toastie

cheesey_toastie wrote :-

Its not seperate, the water going through your rads also goes through the coil in your hot water cylinder

Regards Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

What do you mean by "no hot water"?

When you open a hot tap, do you get:

  • water, but it's cold?
  • nothing?

If the former, this is to be expected because the water from the boiler circulates through the indirect coil in the hot water cylinder to heat the water. No working boiler/pump= no hot water.

If the latter, you've clearly got more than one problem!

Reply to
Set Square

Set Square have water, cold... we've turned off the Hot water so not to run the pump dry (as it was running for 40mins).

I think the header tank is sludged as i shovelled out a half bucket of sludge as I drained the system which must have blocked up!

We'll try blasting mains up the drain pipe and also through the header to system pipe.

Reply to
cheesey_toastie

I presume you mean on the central heating programmer?

The 'hot' water should still run, but be cold. Most would fit an immersion as a back up for just this situation.

You've had an (expensive) lesson about the need for inhibitor and the need to change it regularly.

I wish you well. I'd be thinking about removing all the rads and flushing them separately.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Set Square have water, cold... we've turned off the Hot water so not to run the pump dry (as it was running for 40mins).

I think the header tank is sludged as i shovelled out a half bucket of sludge as I drained the system which must have blocked up!

We'll try blasting mains up the drain pipe and also through the header to system pipe.

Reply to
cheesey_toastie

Thanks everyone for the help... we now have water running through the central heating again!

We tried flushing mains through the drain outlet, which indeed did leak from the body (Its my mums house and she did the usual fretting to aid the situation)! This didnt seem to fill the up stairs rads up so we tried the same technique trhough the header tank, which after a few burts did dislodge the sludge enough to get the cleaner that we'd added running through.

With any luck this should clear our blocked system and we wont have to flush rads!

Cheers again everyone, I'm off for a shower!

ct

Reply to
cheesey_toastie

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