Radiators not heating

[ToBeClear]

We're in a 4 story house and our radiators are all warm except for 2 in the basement. The pipe leading into the radiators is warm but obviously no hot water is flowing through them. The thermostat valve on both is turned all the way to the left. What are we missing? Thank you!

Could there be an air block? Do you have a radiator key?

turn off ALL the hot ones. Do the cold ones now heat up (I bet they do. Easy fix.)

How old is the house; how old are the radiators; when did they last work properly; when did you add or alter one of the radiators, or take it off to redecorate?

Sounds like they might want bleeding I.e removing air out ofvsyste.

Should be a valve at top, either side.

Crack valve until water dribbles out.

Open valve a tiny amount as well

Opened top valves and water came out as I thought it might be air too.

House is Victorian, don't know how old radiators are but suspect 20-30 years old. Will turn other radiators off but not all off them have a 1-5 type valve - some just have a valve that twists open or closed and not all of them move easily.

Radiators have worked while we've been in the house (6 weeks) but always seems sporadic and not always on even when heating is on.

Thanks! Will run round house turning others off lol

Already feel them getting hit after closing just 2 off on the main floor - thank you! Does this mean our boiler pressure or capacity isn't sufficient for all the radiators in the house? Thank you!

Thought this might have been my DH posting.😯 We have exactly the same problem. We turned all the rads off apart from the basement ones and they got hot. Turned all the others back on and basement ones are cold again 🤨

It just means the radiators need balancing. This should be done at time of installation, but if anybody takes a radiator off for decoration, or adds or moves one, they usually cock it up.

All the radiators are connected in parallel between the flow pipe and the return pipe.

The hot water takes the path of least resistance.

So it flows through the easiest radiators, and not through the more difficult ones (for example, furthest away from the pump)

The art of balancing is to make the flow more difficult through the easy radiators.

I will look up one of my earlier posts and attach a link.

Out of my 52 previous posts on Radiator balancing, this one looks quite comprehensive:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/a2205419-New-radiators-not-getting-hot#50023831

Thank you so much @PigletJohn

Thank you from me too