Radiator Not Heating Up

[Mjlatham1]

Hi,

Sorry if question already answered in previous posts, but I can't find a solution to the below:

We recently moved house to a new home that has previously been extended. In one of the bedrooms that has been extended there are 2 radiators, one which looks like it was fitted when the extension was built, and one that looks older and is in the original part of the room.

The radiator in the extended part of the room works fine but the original radiator (small, single panel) is not heating up and the copper pipes leading to it are also cold.

I have tried the below steps, but it is still stone cold:


1) Firstly I tried bleeding the radiator; then

2) I removed the radiator from the wall and flushed it using a hose (there was a tiny bit of debris but no sludge), at the same time I checked water flow from both the inlet and outlets (there is water flowing from both)

3) Re-pressurised the boiler and re-bled the radiator

4) Once none of the above worked, I turned all of the thermostatic valves off on all other radiators in the house to see if they were 'stealing the heat', again no luck!


None of the above has worked and the radiator and pipes remain cold when all other radiators are hot.

I originally assumed it had been disconnected from the system when the extension was done, but as there is water flowing through the pipes, that obviously isn't the case.

I'm not sure if there is anything else I can try as I'm all out of ideas?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Activate Trade Training]

The issue might be due to a blockage in the pipes leading to the original radiator or a balancing issue within your heating system. Begin by fully balancing the radiators, starting from the closest to the boiler to the furthest. If no improvement, inspect for internal blockages or a malfunctioning valve. It's essential to ensure that water can circulate freely to all radiators. If these steps don't resolve the issue, you might need to call on a heating engineer for a bit more of a detailed inspection, as there might be more complex problems within your heating system.

 

[Ben-gee]

Can you trace the pipework?
If you’re getting good flow from both the inlet and outlet but the radiator does not heat up - I suspect that you have either two inlets or two outlets (normally referred to as flow and return).
If this is the case you get no flow through the radiator.
You did say this was the original radiator, which could well mean it has never worked, although you’d think someone would have done something by now- so perhaps it’s not what I said!

 

[Mjlatham1]

The issue might be due to a blockage in the pipes leading to the original radiator or a balancing issue within your heating system. Begin by fully balancing the radiators, starting from the closest to the boiler to the furthest. If no improvement, inspect for internal blockages or a malfunctioning valve. It's essential to ensure that water can circulate freely to all radiators. If these steps don't resolve the issue, you might need to call on a heating engineer for a bit more of a detailed inspection, as there might be more complex problems within your heating system.

Thanks,

I don't think any internal blockages as there was good flow from both pipes.

Next thought was balancing so might give that a try.

 

[Mjlatham1]

Thanks Ben-gee,

I haven't yet tried to trace the pipework as I didn't realise you could have two flow or return pipes to one radiator. I'll do some tracing under the floorboards and see whether anything obvious.

Thanks

 

[Ben-gee]

You can indeed! It occurs by mistake and more often than you might think!

My current house had this problem and I only discovered it when I decided to make an effort in one of the bedrooms , where the rad heated very poorly. According to neighbours the system had been put in by British Gas about 25 years before - the previous owners used to use an electric fire in that room!

 

[Mjlatham1]

You can indeed! It occurs by mistake and more often than you might think!

My current house had this problem and I only discovered it when I decided to make an effort in one of the bedrooms , where the rad heated very poorly. According to neighbours the system had been put in by British Gas about 25 years before - the previous owners used to use an electric fire in that room!

So I figured it out, thanks to some stupidity on my behalf.

When I said I had good flow from both the flow and return, what I didn't mention was the only reason I knew that is because I unscrewed the TRV whilst the radiator was on the wall (cue water gushing out of the flow pipe all over my daughter's carpet!).....rookie error. I managed to get the TRV back on and stem the flow, and that is the point that I came on here as I was confused given both the flow and the return had water flowing.......

So yesterday I removed the radiator again and decided to run both pipes for a few minutes, just to check if any big air bubbles in the pipes.....having learnt my lesson from the previous day, I left the TRV on this time and turned it from 0 up to fully open, but no water came out.

Thankfully I knew from my rather wet mistake the previous day, that there was definitely water in the pipe.

I was therefore able to work out from this that there was a faulty TRV head which was stuck on the 0 setting, so even when I thought it was fully open, the pin was essentially always pushed closed.

I put everything back together, removed the TRV head which allowed the pin to release and instantly had a boiling hot radiator

Don't think I would ever have thought to check the actual TRV head as I hadn't seen anything about those being faulty in anything I have read/watched....but a nice, simple fix in the end.

Appreciate the suggestions and they would have been my next steps if I hadn't figured this out.

Thanks

 

[Ben-gee]

Well done for sorting it.
Waggling the trv pin would have been the first advice you’d have got on this forum - if you hadn’t said you got good flow from both sides!!!!!