Central Heating

[scorgan]

My radiators in my house only seem to heat up upstairs and the down stairs radiators are stone cold could you tell me what the problem is and how to rectify this

[andy hughes]

You probably have one or more air-locks in your system. You need to 'bleed' the air out - it's very simple. Buy a radiator valve key from any good hardware store, use it to gently loosen the little nut you'll find at the top of each radiator. You will hear air escaping - as soon as water appears, tighten the nut back up again - finger tight is ok. Apply to each radiator in turn, starting with the lower floor first, and finish in the bathroom. You may need to do this a couple of times, leave the system for a day in between each attempt. This should clear the problem - if not, it's a call to your plumber, but this is an easy, and free, method that usually sorts the problem.

[incitatus]

Another possibility is that the system is unbalanced. After trying to bleed them, if no improvement is noticed, try turning off all the radiators upstairs. If the downstairs ones heat it is a balance problem. You need to open the upstairs ones carefu;lly to allow just enough flow through so that they heat but downstairs heats too. The remove the adjustor knobs to stop people fiddling.