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Im in need of a bit of advice with trying to drain my system down.

Its a fully pumped system.
The system does not have any drain off taps so i've used a rad valve with a compression nut and a short length of pipe to make my drain off

heres what i've done so far:
-switched off CH
-set both motorised valves to latched open
-drained a s ingle downstairs rad ( the one where ill be draining the rest of the system from)
-drained all the upstairs rads (all upstairs air vents are open)

the problem im having is that after the flow of water from the upstairs rads stopped, I moved down stairs to open the air vents on the down stairs rads however, instead of sucking air, in the down stairs rads are spitting out water and not draining.
(The TRV's and the lockshields on the downstairs rads are fully open)

Anyone got any advice on what i need to do.
 
Tie the ballvalve up in the small heating feed and expasion tank or if possible isolate via a valve on the supply to the tank . cheers kop
 
Your downstairs rads maybe on drops is your ground floor solid or suspended timber ?
 
Your downstairs rads maybe on drops is your ground floor solid or suspended timber ?

Yes i believe they are although i can't find the drops as they are hidden behind walls.

Solid concrete floor downstairs, pipes all buried under the concrete.

What next?
 
Yes i believe they are although i can't find the drops as they are hidden behind walls.

Solid concrete floor downstairs, pipes all buried under the concrete.

What next?
Thought so , you will have to drain each rad individually.
 
Edit .... If they are on drops you shouldnt have any pipes in the floor .
 
Right, I will set about draining each rad then.
Now that you mention it i think this maybe what i ended up doing last time id did it ( it was a while ago so cant fully remember!)


Edit .. If they are on drops you shouldnt have any pipes in the floor .

Hmm maybe they're not then.....everything downstairs is on 10mm microbore set in concrete apart from 2 rads in the conservatory which are on 15mm

Ive struggled to confirm exactly how and where downstairs rads are fed from with all the decor in place
 
Drops are a pain but they are better that pipes in concrete or screed
 
Edit .. If they are on drops you shouldnt have any pipes in the floor .

So, the majority of my rads (5 out of 7) are fed from pipe work that is buried in concrete ( not sure about the other two as i don't know what subfloor is conservatory flooring)

Based on your quote above, how would (should) pipes buried in the floor be fed? assuming they are not on drops
 
assuming the boiler is downstairs the pipes would go straight down and probably be hidden in a pipe box going upwards , do the pipes to the downstairs rads come out of the wall or up from the floor .
 
assuming the boiler is downstairs the pipes would go straight down and probably be hidden in a pipe box going upwards

yes the boiler is downstairs BUT the pipes all appear to go up....

upload_2018-2-18_20-20-10.png

over to the left of the boiler is the only place i can find what looks to be some pipe work that may be a drop

upload_2018-2-18_20-22-56.png

see that pipe that i've put the red line against....im not sure what that one is for. (Middle one is cold feed off the mains, right hand one is domestic HW of the cylinder)

I have tried seeing if it warms up in the past when running the CH but it never seems to do so.... not sure what its for.

do the pipes to the downstairs rads come out of the wall or up from the floor .

All of the down stairs rads except one(unconfirmed) have the pipe work coming directly up from the floor.

The unconfirmed downstairs rad where i cant identify where the pipe work comes from yet is located in a downstairs wc on the other side of that wall where the 3 pipes are shown in my second pic.


The radiator in that room is the only downstairs one where the pipes do not appear to come from the ground. The pipe work is all boxed in behind some units so i can't see where it comes from.

All i can see is that the pipe is coming from a 10mm pipe feed somewhere. (you might be able to make out the 10 to 15mm adapters fitted just where the pipes come out from the plinth)

upload_2018-2-18_20-48-27.png
 
What town said. You have drained off from a downstairs rad but only drained of water higher than the rad you drained from. Eavery other downstairs rad will still have water in it.
 
Looks like all your pipes are on separate rad drops , they pipe you cant ID will be the gas pipe
 
Looks like all your pipes are on separate rad drops

cheers fellas, rad by rad it its then!
Actually if i wanted to do some work on the pipes feeding a single rad (i.e re route the feed/return pipes to a new location) would i get away with only draining down the individual rad and the drop that feeds it?

the pipe you cant ID will be the gas pipe

yes that's what i did think but there are no gas appliances in the adjacent room(s) or where that pipe appears to go up to the first floor....anyway that can be the subject of investigation another time!

Cheers all
 
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