help its doing my head in.

i have 7 rads, and a vaillaint 828e turbomax boiler.

I have heat to 3 rads upstairs

NO heat to the downstairs 4

I have hot water, but no water going to the shower.

me and me mate bled 3 rads downstairs, by using the valve at the bottom of the rad, re filled system. The one rad got hot, so i went to do the one in the lounge.

By the time i did that, the other rad i bled went cold. Now at the beginning of the year, we had an extension done to to the house and had a rad added. I am wondering whether the builder bled the whole system and if he had not could this be the cause of my problem, as it was ok beforehand?

On the new rad installed there is no bleed pipe underneath it. Is this right? Should i bleed the whole system, and if so how??




Thanks to anyone who can help me

 

hi, im guessing your boiler is upstairs? needs balanced=if so you should shut down your 3 rads upstairs using the valves at the rads, and open the downstairs 4, you should get heat to the ones downstairs,
leave the valves on the downstairs ones about 1 turn open and then do this to the upstairs ones(open 1 turn each) and this should solve your problem, if that doesnt work and all air is out your system - replace your pump becausde its only using gravity to heat the top radiators

STU

 

yes it is callum

ill try that then

 

tried it

rads downstairs warmed up for like 5 minutes then went cold

one in extension never evem warmed up

 

how old is the boiler?

might be worth changing the pump tbh


oh and how did you bleed the rad at the bottom???? the air rises to the top so you need to use the bleed key on the top end of the rad

 

the boiler is 3.5 years old

i bled it from bottom , and at same time, a little bit from the top. Now the bizarre thing is, all upstairts are still off.

kitchen is cold
lounge is cold
onein extension cold
one in hallway luke warm

 

fill the system up to 1.5 bar and bleed all radiators from the top valve

how long does the boiler run for before it switches off?

do you thermostatic radiator valves? if so check that the pins inside are not stuck down after being off for a while

could also be a diverter valve or pump fault if none of the above.

really need to be in front of it so i can see what its doing first hand

 

the boiler runs for like 2 or 3 minutes then goes off. there are no thermo valves except for the one in the extension that was added.

 

Is the pump actually spinning? sounds like it is if rads are warming downstairs at all.

There are thermal sensors on hot water pipe and c/h pipe I think, also an overheat sensor. Could be the c/h one .. If you can find a manual, check for that.
other thing could be a faulty modulator valve .. thats a bit more pricey ...

But I think you need the manual for this one .. to follow the fault finding sequence.

 

stick a new pump in it mate - that boiler should run for about 20mins at least before it has to modulate down to low flame.

is it noisy just before it shuts down?

sounds like it has circulation problems, thats why it shuts down early because the heat is staying in the boiler.

 

it may be spinning but you could still stop it with a screwdriver

 

it does sound noisy

by my own sort of technical thoughts, i did this today, shut down all upstairs rads

shut down all rads downstairs apart from one in in extension

it came on red hot


turned on one in hall , red hot
turned on one in kitchen, red hot
turned lounge one on, stone cold

at same time one4 in extension went cold

so turned em all off except for lounge

that went red hot,

then hall theat went hot

tnen i gave up

 

change the pump -its not strong enough to push all the heat round

about Ł50 -Ł70 for a pump but cos its a combi you may have to get one for that boiler.

 

I dont agree ... A Valiant pump will be perfectly adequate. It may be a Grundfoss.
I reckon he has a big airlock in the pipework somewhere. Maybe in the pipework under floor upstairs or one that connects up the cold rad.

Try shutting all the rads that heat up OK, charge system pressure up to 2 bar ... Open the rad bleed valve .. after ensuring the lockshield and control are both open.
Try to give a thorough bleed. I like to see hot water coming thru at this point. Keep the pressure topped up while you do this.
Try this on the other rad that doesnt get hot, see what you can achieve mate.

There are other more drastic measures to get air out including back-filling .. dont wanna do that yet tho.

 

ok i did all of that Al

i got all downstairs ones hot including extension one

i opened up bath rad and then opened valve. I got a shhhhhh nopise splutter splutter then hot water,

opened 2 bedrooms one they got hot, bled them no noise

then one in hallyway got cold and one in lounge got cooler.

The 2 bedrooms ones i reduced valves to halfway and they was still piping hot.

 

i have seen plenty of grundfos' and valliant pumps that are fucked - you can stop the spindle spinning with a screwdriver.

there is no air lock - he just needs a new pump

 

and i didnt mean its not big enough - its just worn out and cant cope with the system anymore

 

you joking me right?

3 years old and i have an etxra rad added and its fooked

 

should be quite an easy prob to solve.

would come and help if i didbt live so far away!

(tech eng for scottish gas)

 

rapidcossie what your views please on this?????????????

 

2secs and ill read the whole thread

 

cheers my mate

 

the pump might be a good place to start? with only 7 rads they should all heat no probs....

how old is the system and rads and what colour is the sytem water?

remember that if your not corgi registered you shouldnt even be removing the boiler casing lol

 

the whole syatem is 3.5 years old

the system water is a frothy whitish colour.

i havnt removed any casings lol, as underneath is the access to refill the sytem. thats alli have doen on it to get it back to 1.8 bar

 

sounds ok so far.

can remove the flow pipe to the rads that are not heating to try and establish if there actaully is any flow to them or if the water is static?

 

i like the way you say scottish gas

british gas not good enuf for ya


british is better anyway

 

wow, u lost me now dude

 

sorry british gas!

its centrica who actually pay my wages!

says scottish gas on the van tho!

 

where did you check for the colour of the water?

best off checking as low down on the system as you can


was all the pipework and rads installed with the boiler then?


still reckon its the pump not unusual for a pump in a combi to last shorter than an open system pump as it is start stop start stop all the time (as it runs with hot water demand too)

 

yea i know i am British gas in south london

 

wow 2 expertsthen cool

the water was taken from hallway rad, but saying that all water from all rads looked consistent ie i gues th efrothy shit is inhibitor.

yeh all rads and pipwrok and boiler was installed at same time

EXCEPT the rad inthe extension

 

its a lot harder trying to explain how to fix it than it actually is to do it lol

 

lol i bet

latest update to this is

all upstairs rads shut off
hallway piping hot even tho it didnt work earlier
lounge warmish
extension luke warm

so i turned hallway rad off, lounge and extension get s piping hot

 

you really need to get the boiler casing off and have a look at the pump, even then just cos it spinning doesnt mean its ok....

we have a spcial program on laptops that when a special sensor is fitted can tell you how fast the pump is going.

are there any loud noises from the boiler itself?

for example a noise like build up in pressure that dies away then comes back?
(actually the water boiling in the heat exchanger cos the pump is not pumping it away fast enough)

 

i dare ya to get the pump changed


pump is Ł 113 on my system but i dunno if thats a reduced price for us or not

 

fook that, taking casing off lol, ill blow the whol street up pmsl

there a few weird noises like an acceleration of "wind " noise then dies off. This happens more if i press the +/- together causing boiler to to ignite and warm up from say 63 to 91 degress then cuts out

other than that it sounds normal

 

MATT- how much

 

would 2nd matts opinion and prob change the pump.

why not take out a contract with british gas and it can all be sorted for about 15 quid a month!

cant believe i just promoted the company lol

makes sense tho!

 

sell the house and start again is my advice, get it sold quick before the weather turns

 

i did dude

then i got fooke dover by bank issues (ie my bank paid sumon they shudnt have dun and now going through banking ombudsman cos ofall charges etc )

now i missed 2 payments BG want the full outstanding before they will comeout