Radiator Problem

[kat1]

Put my heating on today & the radiator in the main bedroom is only luke warm even when turned up to 5. Tried bleeding it but just getting brown smelly water out? All the other radiators are working fine.

[tonyav]

It may need the valves balancing.

[kat1]

Is it something i can do myself tony?

[tonyav]

Yes you should be able to do that yourself Kat.

[kat1]

Are you going to tell me how?

[sunny-dave]

Tony may well be right - but it may also just be a piece of gunk stuck somewhere.

Try turning every other rad right off and run the system for a while - see if the offending one then gets hot. With a bit of luck you will have shifted the grot and it will then be OK when you turn the other rads back on.

[kat1]

Ok thanks Dave.

[tonyav]

Right, turn off all the rads using the the on / of valve on the rads and then turn the valve on the opersite side of the rads of and then turn them back on, say one full turn and then turn on the on / of valve say half a turn at a time untill the rads get hot.

[The Builder]

Kat, you may have a pin stuck down on the TRV (valve with the numbers on it). It often happens after the heating has been dormant for a while.
Unscrew the head of the valve and take it off. The pin should pop right up. Tap the body with a hammer if it's stuck. The rad should warm up to maximum without the head on.

[pdq1]

We had problems with our radiators not getting very hot. We bought a Fernox type liquid and put half the container into the heating header tank in the loft. This got rid of all the rust and gunge in the radiators and deposited all the slime in the header tank which we cleared out by scooping out. The radiators have never worked better.

[pdq1]

By the way professionals would drain the sludge out with fresh water but some people are unprepared to do this for fear of causing airlocks.

[kat1]

Thanks everyone. Got the plumber in & it's got to be a complete flush out.

[kat1]

Been told it will cost approx £400 for flush out. I'm not paying as i rent my flat but seems a lot of money & i don't want the owners to be ripped off! The plumber works for the letting agents.

[tonyav]

Get more quotes of different plumbers, kat.

[kat1]

It's not up to me Tony i only rent. I just don't trust the agents/plumber and just wondered if anyone on here might have an idea like buildersmate etc. Thanks anyway.

[tonyav]

It does sound expensive, kat.

[kat1]

Just an update: Owners sent a different plumber as other quote was far too high. Anyway, because my pipes are 10ml & not 15ml he could not use the machine to flush out so had to take off all 5 radiators and empty out by hand! The bedroom one was the worst & he also had to stick a huge length of the thickest fuse wire down the pipe to unblock it & also go up into loft & do the same from there! He also had to put new 'copper' pipes on in loft as ALL pipes are PLASTIC with NO joints! (They do this in new builds) The brown sludgy water that came out was disgusting! He also put a filter thing on the boiler so it will in future send clean water round the system. ALL radiators working fine now. Thanks for all your replies.