Not all radiators working. Running out of ideas

Torison said:
Can't see a brand, I will try searching though.

What is the "average" setting for most systems?

The pipe work below is warm on touching (and heating not even on)
Click to expand...
Mine was .4 and i don't have more than 14 radiators in total!

The lower the setting, the easier it is for the system to open it and just dump water back.

If you have circulation problems, then this will just pop open.

I notice there is a set of couplings in the vertical main pipe?
Was this the site of the old pump?
Does your new boiler have the pump in it?
Does it need a bypass?
The boiler instructions will tell you.

If it does, go set it properly (make sure it's working) you shouldn't be getting bypass unless all of the zone valves are closed (unless you have TRVs on every rad and they are all hot).

If you trace all the pipework out, you might find you have botched plumbing. Reverse flow, in series rad connections etc.

The .2 bypass wouldn't be giving me confidence that the last bunch of "professionals" did it any better than you can.

Might be right, might not be. Do the easy stuff first.
 
BlueLoo said:
Mine was .4 and i don't have more than 14 radiators in total!

The lower the setting, the easier it is for the system to open it and just dump water back.

If you have circulation problems, then this will just pop open.
Click to expand...
I will try change it to 0.4 then and see if any improvment - worth a go
BlueLoo said:
I notice there is a set of couplings in the vertical main pipe?
Was this the site of the old pump?
Click to expand...
No idea I'm afraid
BlueLoo said:
Does your new boiler have the pump in it?
Click to expand...
Yes a grundfos ump2 15-70(?)
BlueLoo said:
Does it need a bypass?
The boiler instructions will tell you.
Click to expand...
I'll try dig them out and look
BlueLoo said:
If it does, go set it properly (make sure it's working) you shouldn't be getting bypass unless all of the zone valves are closed (unless you have TRVs on every rad and they are all hot).

If you trace all the pipework out, you might find you have botched plumbing. Reverse flow, in series rad connections etc.

The .2 bypass wouldn't be giving me confidence that the last bunch of "professionals" did it any better than you can.

Might be right, might not be. Do the easy stuff first.
Click to expand...
Make sense to try, at least rules out things before the plumbers take a look tomorrow
 
Torison said:
I will try change it to 0.4 then and see if any improvment - worth a go

No idea I'm afraid

Yes a grundfos ump2 15-70(?)

I'll try dig them out and look

Make sense to try, at least rules out things before the plumbers take a look tomorrow
Click to expand...

Wonder if the pump isn't up to the task in its setting.?

(Fyi only. I am outside any skill zone here)

For systems with high resistance we would recommend that
2.1J is left at 100% and that 2.1H is adjusted to at least 80%.
Click to expand...

Edit: purely for info only and perhaps something to be aware of when discussing with a pro.
Might be relevant or not.

Etc. etc.
 
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It's an old house, you could have a mix of single pipe and dual pipe systems.

You wrote that you clean the magfilter every other day - does a lot of shi-ite come out each time? Collect some in a glass and let it settle. Is the black stuff >10% of the sample?

Suggest setting the ABV to 0.4 bar before re-testing.
You may also consider lifting a floorboard in front of one of those bad rads, are both ends of the rad piped into a single hot pipe?
 
MeldrewsMate said:
It's an old house, you could have a mix of single pipe and dual pipe systems.

You wrote that you clean the magfilter every other day - does a lot of shi-ite come out each time? Collect some in a glass and let it settle. Is the black stuff >10% of the sample?

Suggest setting the ABV to 0.4 bar before re-testing.
You may also consider lifting a floorboard in front of one of those bad rads, are both ends of the rad piped into a single hot pipe?
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Hi Meldrew,

I have now set it to 0.4 as suggested. A little more warmth than usual actually (unless im imagining it), but still not even close to working as it should.

Not as much in the filter as I expected/ thought when I placed the x800. Now i check it regularly there's just a couple of small rings each time. The water in the magna clean is clean and the excess when bleeding rads is clean to.

When I drained the rads the water was a little more dirty, but it was only when I flushed them did all the crud come out.

I think you are right, I've got a feeling it's a mix of both

I can't lift near one as the boards are perpendicular to the rad. But I'll try and look at the one in our main bedroom at some point tomorrow (baby's in the crib atm) but that is the large "modern" double that looks to have been fitted later.

What would it mean/what are the issues of having a mix of pipes?

Cheers
 
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Hello, bit if a follow up (if anyone is interested)

I had a plumber around today to take a look.

Sadly the entire thing looks to be on a one pipe system. Bar a new area of piping placed in one bedroom and 2 towel rails (likly when they redid the bathrooms this was done) which is using a dual pipe system.

The downstairs portion of this works a treat. We are having no obvious issues. The problem is upstairs, the further from the boiler we get the colder it gets (as you would expect).

The suggestions were a little limited:

Try a second pump on the single pipe system upstairs; negatives being noise, and needing a sparky to fit as would need it to communicate with the other pump (I think?).

Re-pipe the upper rads.

What are your thoughts on these options?

Would a second pump work? This would be cheaper.

Or, If I am spending the money to get a new pump etc, am I better off just going for the repipe (and getting some new valves and modern efficient rads in the process). Which (I assume) should work.

Any thoughts are appreciated.
Cheers
 
terryplumb said:
Rip out the one pipe system,and have it converted to two pipe set up.
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If the quote is suitable this is my preference. I'm a bit iffy about 2 pumps. Plus this is our forever home. We will have to do it at some point.

He only suggested converting the upstairs (downstairs rads all work perfectly) (boiler downstairs in the garage). This seems OK right? Not going to affect these rads to much?

I was going to ask to change the valves (and trvs?) Into new ones, and replace 3 single panel 60s radiators into something more efficient/modern, rhe rest seem decent. Anything else I should do while they are at it?

When your placing new/modern systems is there anything you always suggest/couldn't do without/fancy but worth it. If I'm gonna do it might as well go whole hog.

Cheers
 
Torison said:
He only suggested converting the upstairs (downstairs rads all work perfectly) (boiler downstairs in the garage). This seems OK right? Not going to affect these rads to much?
Click to expand...

Are the pipes for both first, and ground floor, run under first floor? If so it would make sense to do both at the same time.
 
Do it properly.

Which may not mean doing it at all....


Go back to square one.
If you are future proofing then perhaps heat pump/solar may be worthwhile in the medium -long term maybe not.

Time to do a rethink. No good chucking good money after bad
 
Harry Bloomfield said:
Are the pipes for both first, and ground floor, run under first floor? If so it would make sense to do both at the same time.
Click to expand...
No, pipes for upstairs are under the floorboards, pipes for downstairs are a mix of under downstairs floorboards and within "boxing" above the floor.
 
Torison said:
No, pipes for upstairs are under the floorboards, pipes for downstairs are a mix of under downstairs floorboards and within "boxing" above the floor.
Click to expand...

It could be split as two separate stages then, taking into account your intention to do the ground floor eventually.
 
BlueLoo said:
Do it properly.

Which may not mean doing it at all....


Go back to square one.
If you are future proofing then perhaps heat pump/solar may be worthwhile in the medium -long term maybe not.

Time to do a rethink. No good chucking good money after bad
Click to expand...
The plumber said the boiler was fine for number of rads and size.

I don't overly want the expense of an entirely new heating system/setup. I assume an entire replumb would be pretty dear.

Do you not feel converting it to a dual setup upstairs would work?

I've read that with a single pipe system a different type of trv is required. Is it worth changing these initially?
 
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