Bathroom radiator won’t heat up/manual valve

[ajt2018]

Hello,

Can anyone give any advice please? Our bathroom radiator won’t heat up. It’s a column radiator from Victorian Plumbing - only 2 years old - and has manual cross-head angled valves.

it’s been like this for a while and we are trying to fix it. We’ve previously removed the radiator and flushed the sludge out with a hose pipe, reinstalled and bled it. When we refilled it initially it did get hot.

We experimented with bleeding the radiator to enable flow to see if the inlet valve was working and it does allow hot water in. However, we suspect that the outlet valve is the problem.

Could it be blocked with sludge - metal or lime scale? Or could it be that the valve is faulty? The spindle will turn both directions but could something in the body of the valve be stuck?

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Do you get water from the outlet valve ? Eg when opened

 

[ajt2018]

hi thanks, do you mean the bleed valve? if so yes water comes out it is tepid.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

No the other valve at the bottom when you removed the rad ?

 

[ajt2018]

Hi, when we took the radiator off we tested the inlet and water was coming out. Hot water goes in the radiator but it doesn’t stay hot because it is unable to flow out. We think the return valve might be faulty but don’t know how to test this?

 

[Chuck]

If there was sludge in the radiator then there'll probably be sludge in the pipework that it is connected to.

 

[Gazza91]

Jeez, could be a number of reasons, trapped air is a common reason. Sounds like it needs a power flush.

 

[Timmy D]

Disconnect both sides of the rad and then open each valve in turn into a bucket/rubble sack to prove there is flow at both the flow and return.

Once done, reconnect the rad and bleed half the rad through the flow and half the rad through the return.

Then close all the other rads in the property leaving the problem rad open.

Report findings.

 

[ajt2018]

Disconnect both sides of the rad and then open each valve in turn into a bucket/rubble sack to prove there is flow at both the flow and return.

Once done, reconnect the rad and bleed half the rad through the flow and half the rad through the return.

Then close all the other rads in the property leaving the problem rad open.

Report findings.

Hi, thanks for the suggestion. We have done what you've described above. There is flow at both the "flow" and "return". When we opened the return valve we did have to turn it 2 and a quarter turns to open the valve before any water came out. When water did come out there was a constant high pitch whining noise.

We reconnected the rad and filled it the way you suggested. We've closed off all the other radiators in the house at the TRV and lock shield ends and have put the boiler back on and the thermostat on manual, its been at least 30 minutes now and the bathroom radiator is still cold. After 10 minutes we noticed the flow pipe was getting warm however when one of us put a hot tap on in the kitchen the flow pipe on the bathroom radiator went cold. We've done the same test with turning on the hot pipe in the sink in the bathroom and the same thing happens.

Incidentally some times our shower is not as hot as it could be. We are wondering if this could be an issue with the boiler pump and that the demands for hot water are too high for the pump to deal with?

We have a Worcester Heatslave 15/19 oil fired boiler. From the receipts we have from the previous owner of the house the pump hasn't been replaced for at least 10 years.

thanks.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Did you have to refill the heating system / did you notice the pressure drop when you did the test ?

 

[ajt2018]

Did you have to refill the heating system / did you notice the pressure drop when you did the test ?

Hi, in order to check the valves properly we disconnected the valves and drained the water from the radiator. After which we had to refill the system to replace the several litres of water which we drained out of the radiator. When we did the test we have bled water out of the radiator so that causes the pressure in the system to drop and we have refilled the pressure to the correct level using the filling loop on the boiler. The boiler was turned off when we did this test to prevent this from kicking in automatically, as it is cold outside. In the later part of the test we have put the boiler back on to test if the radiator gets hot which it isn't.

When you say did we notice the pressure drop when we did the test. Do you mean looking at the flow of water from the valve or the overall pressure in the system?

 

[ShaunCorbs]

That’s fine it’s not unheard of the bathroom rad being off the hot water side

 

[exedon2]

Just to be certain you say your boiler is a worcester heat slave it is a combi?
If that is the case heating flow going cooler when running hot would be normal.

 

[ajt2018]

That’s fine it’s not unheard of the bathroom rad being off the hot water side

Disconnect both sides of the rad and then open each valve in turn into a bucket/rubble sack to prove there is flow at both the flow and return.

Once done, reconnect the rad and bleed half the rad through the flow and half the rad through the return.

Then close all the other rads in the property leaving the problem rad open.

Report findings.

Just to be certain you say your boiler is a worcester heat slave it is a combi?
If that is the case heating flow going cooler when running hot would be normal.

Hi, yes it’s a combi boiler. We think it could be a problem with the boiler pump which after checking the receipts further looks like the original pump that was put in back in 2003, unless anyone has any other ideas we could try. Thanks

 

[ajt2018]

The flow pipe gets how but for some reason the radiator just isn’t getting hot.

 

[exedon2]

I see you indicated the return valve needed 2 1/4 turns before water came out that would be my main suspect.
I've seen some of the cheaper types of the rad valves like yours have non rising head works that can jam fully open or virtually closed.

 

[ajt2018]

I see you indicated the return valve needed 2 1/4 turns before water came out that would be my main suspect.
I've seen some of the cheaper types of the rad valves like yours have non rising head works that can jam fully open or virtually closed.

Hi, the reason we took the radiator fully off was so that we could see sideways into the valve. We could see that when turned the valves were opening and closing. The valves were atleast £30 so I wouldn’t say that they were cheap…

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Turn all the other trvs off and retest does that one heat up ?

 

[ajt2018]

Turn all the other trvs off and retest does that one heat up ?

Hi, someone already suggested that in the message chain above it didn’t work.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Piping to the rad faulty if your getting flow from each side so never worked

 

[ajt2018]

Piping to the rad faulty if your getting flow from each side so never worked

Hi, sorry don’t know what you mean. Can you explain abit better. Thanks

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Sometime has to be wrong with the piping your getting good flow out of each valve

Rad is changed / clear

So sounds like the pipework is wrong eg flow to flow or return to return

 

[ajt2018]

Hi, sorry don’t know what you mean. Can you explain abit better. Thanks

Piping to the rad faulty if your getting flow from each side so never worked

The radiator did work and was very hot at one point but just has not worked properly for some reason for several months.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Can’t be as you’ve turned all the others off and it still doesn’t heat being the only one left ?

 

[ajt2018]

The radiator did work and was very hot at one point but just has not worked properly for some reason for several months.

Hi, as mentioned above the radiator used to work fine, before that radiator was in situ there was a towel radiator that had manually valves and again that worked fine for years. We don’t know if it could be a problem with the pump on the boiler not being impactive enough or potentially whether this could be an indicator of a blockage in the pipe. Or something else.