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 ?