Heating guys, what would you do next?

[WaterTight]

Customer has one rad not heating up, sort of tepid. Worked before, no work has been done in between.

It's a combi. Rad in question has a TRV so changed the TRV to rule that out. Still tepid.

Turned all the other rads in the house off at their TRV's and it got nice and hot. Left it like that for a bit while I changed a bog seat. Then turned all rads back on, it became tepid again. The rad in the room next to it struggling too.

House has 3 rads and a combi downstairs, 4 rads upstairs. All other rads got hot inc other two upstairs.

What would you try next? And if that didn't work what would you try after that?

Thanks

 

[MOSSEP]

Re balance the system, maybe the lock shields are fully open on the other rads?

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Balance the system would be my next aswell

 

[Scott_D]

Balance the system or try and find the rad that’s stealing the heat by closing one trv at a time

 

[WaterTight]

Cool, balancing. Universal agreement. Thanks all.

Just out of curiosity though, are you saying that a system that was working fine (apparently) can later need balancing despite no work being done/alterations occuring in meantime? i.e. a RE-balancing?

Or are you presuming there's some confusion/bullshit going on/ignore what they say and just deal with the system as you find it type thing?

I always ask people if things worked before, come to think of it they always say yes.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

I always find they bend the truth will come out later saying that one doesn’t heat up fully or been temperamental

 

[WaterTight]

So for someone who doesnt know how to balance a system.......turn down the lockshields a bit on the ones that get hottest first?

 

[Scott_D]

The pump could be weak
Sludge or partial blockage

they always say it use to work and try havevt touched anything 🤣🤣

 

[oz-plumber]

Check pump on boiler.
Remove bleed screw and check if you can stop the pump spinning with a screwdriver.
( with gentle or minimal force)
If so, replace pump, or if you can source a capacitor, replace that.

If the pump has some force when you try to stop the spindle, balancing the system or try replacing rad valves on affected rads.

Then again, customers will sometimes tell porky's about existing problems

 

[Ric2013]

WaterTight said:

I always ask people if things worked before, come to think of it they always say yes.

Of course it worked. Until they noticed it didn't. The point at which they noticed was, in their minds, the point it stopped working. But they may have noticed instantly or it may never have worked but they didn't notice, therefore they believed it did work until as above.

If the customer is a reliable narrator, it could be some rust has lodged at the lockshield valve on the radiator in question and is restricting flow.

It's not something I have seen happen myself (EDIT or have I now I think about it?), but I can imagine it is something that might happen.

If so, you could try noting the current setting of the lockshield valve, then opening it with the system running and with the other rads shut down and then restore its current setting. Doing this may serve to blast the rust that my be partially obstructing the lockshield to somewhere else where it hopefully won't cause a nuisance.

 

[WaterTight]

Thanks all, great info for mullings