Heating not working

[zaffa]

Help! We've completed on our house today which has been empty for a few months only to find that the heating isn't working properly and none of the radiators on the ground floor get hot at all. I can't get an engineer out til Monday but it sounds like it's going to be expensive to fix

Is there anything I can do, to reclaim some of the costs from the vendor? The estate agent had been renting the property out but told me that they hadn't inspected it or anything else since October last year when they handed responsibility back to the vendor. I specifically asked whether the heating would be kept on to prevent problems and they said yes but the heating was off when we got there today.

I'm so angry - I knew I should have refused to exchange until I saw the heating working but I stupidly trusted them that the property was still being maintained.

"none of the radiators on the ground floor get hot at all."

Do you mean that the upstairs radiators get hot? If so, turn off all the hot ones. Do the cold ones now heat up?

How old do you think the heating system is? What size are the pipes? Pencil? Finger? Arm?

Is there a hot water cylinder? What colour?

Do the radiators have TRVs? What number are they set to?

Please describe or, better, photograph the room thermostat(s) and other controls

Have you tried bleeding them? What is the gauge on the boiler at? Seems like John above knows his stuff so hopefully you can get it working!

As above, it sounds like there could be an air lock, or, the system is unbalanced (all the pressure going to the top floors...)

I would firstly get a radiator key and bleed all the radiators (let the air out) - this needs to be done with the valves (on both ends of the radiator) fully open, once you get a bit of water out, go to the boiler and check the central heating pressure and top up if necessary.

Then, go to each radiator and set all the thermostatic valves to max - normally 5, go to the valve (under the cap) on the other end of the radiator and fully open it, fully tighten it and count how many turns it takes, then halve that number and open it by that amount - i.e halfway.

Turn heating on and see what happens - open the little valves or tighten them a quarter turn to make the colder radiators hotter and the hotter radiators colder. Once each radiator is working, adjust the big TRV valves to a setting that suits each room.

Thanks everyone.

We aren't staying overnight at the house due to the heating issues (luckily I have very accommodating in-laws) so I'll be back first thing tomorrow to take photos.

There are thermostatic room controls on each radiator so I can turn them all off individually. I haven't bled them as the key is in a box somewhere so I'll pop to home base tomorrow. We tried with a flat screwdriver but it wouldn't budge at all and didn't want to force it so would rather get a proper key.

I'll also try turning off all the ones upstairs and seeing if that gets downstairs hot. I checked the pipes and the ones going into the upstairs radiators are all hot but all the downstairs pipes are cold.

Thanks everyone!!

It won't be a bleeding problem.

You've got PigletJohn on the case, but I would look for any room thermostats and see if they've been turned down.

Hi @PigletJohn

Pics below. Those are the radiators and the boiler

And these two ar the boiler and the pump. I'm not sure but I think that the boiler is only coming on when the hot water kicks in also as I turned on the heating and it didn't come on until I also turned on the hot water.

So it looks like a conventional boiler.
Do you have hot water? If yes the boiler must be working in some capacity.

Do the radiators upstairs get hot?

At the back behind your boiler is the control panel, it might be that that needs reprogramming. Can you get a closer up photo of it?

As previously mentioned is there a room thermostat somewhere? Usually up a hall.

Hi - thanks for the reply. We have hot water and the radiators upstairs got hot. I followed @PigletJohn advice and turned the upstairs radiators off and the downstairs ones on and now they get hot. I set the control panel to constantly on instead of on timed and there is a thermostat in the hall downstairs - no other thermostats anywhere that I can see.

How is the control programmed? Have you checked the settings? It's showing water and heating 'on' by the look of things. By the way, the back of a cupboard is a pretty daft place for it. The thing underneath with a yellow cover is the hot water cylinder. We have the same controls for ours.

Thanks. Ive has one like this before - I agree with the location being stupid! We are going to put a Combi Boiler in anyway so will move everything about to being in a better location then. I'm assuming setting it to on will keep it on all the time until the temp is reached?

Sounds like the system is not balanced, if turning the upstairs makes the downstairs work.
If the downstairs are working now, open the upstairs ones a quarter of a turn at a time on the left hand side not the main control, you might need a spanner.
Leave a few minutes between turns and eventually each of the upstairs will get warm. Hopefully the downstairs will still be working and half the water will be going up and half down

Hi @johnd2 can I check that you mean to open them using the bit on the bottom of the radiator without a numbered control? It's in one of my pics below. I tried to upload it and circle the bit I mean but too many images uploaded today :(

It's on constantly on that setting. The thermostat(s) should mean the heating will stop drawing heat from the boiler once the temperature set is reached and draw it again as it drops. You don't need the water on constantly. Once the water has been on for a couple of hours, I'd drain all the hot water to flush everything through and kill any bacteria in the pipework, such as legionella, by turning on all the hot taps and any showers fed by the hot water (i.e. not electric showers). Just thinking about the place not having been occupied for a while.

Yes the middle photo on your 10.18 post

Fully close those on the upstairs radiators, then fully open the other side with the numbers on.
Then you can start gradually opening them.
If you have an infrared thermometer you can do it more precisely but as long as the pump is strong enough this should give you a reasonable balance.

" I followed @PigletJohn advice and turned the upstairs radiators off and the downstairs ones on and now they get hot"

Easy then. Very common and easy to diagnose.

They need balancing. The flow is taking the easy route through the upstairs rads.

Perhaps surprisingly, balancing is not done by opening the cold ones more, but y obstructing the flow through the hot ones by turning them early off. Half a turn from "closed" may be all they need. I'll post a detailed link to instructions in a moment.

Here we are:

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

BTW the photos of the boiler look like it might be a Potterton Profile.

This is an older, but very splendid boiler. Unless you are very young, it will probably last as long as you do, if you can find a local engineer who knows how to care for it. You may have controls or other devices that need adjusting oe replacing, though.

Throwing it on the skip and buying a flimsy modern combi may not be a good move.

Thank you both - I'm on the case! I have however noticed another issue - the heating only comes on when the hot water is on and actively heating the tank. I noticed that the boiler had gone off downstairs and checked that both the heating and hot water were set to on on the control panel. Then I turned the hot water off and started running the bath taps (as suggested to empty the tank from standing water) and once it had been running for some time I turned the hot water back on and this turned the boiler back on. Could this also be resolved by rebalancing?

Thank you for all the advice too! I will look into the boiler options. I think it's from around 2003 but I didn't actually look into how good it was so I'll do some more research into it.

Thanks!

In that case it could be a different problem, the pump is not working correctly or more likely the is an issue with the diverter valve. Last photo of your 10.19 just next to the programmer, with 3 pipes going into it.
The pump should run when the heating is on, hot water is off and the room thermostat is calling for heat.
If it only runs when the hot water is also on and calling for heat, you may need repairs doing.

Agreed.

The timer and stat, when "on" turn the motor in the motorised valve, and the motor mechanism (should) turn on a switch that starts the boiler, whether it is HW, or CH, or both.

The fault might be in the motorised head, but it could also be a wiring fault.

A competent heating engineer should have no difficulty tracing and fixing it. See if there is a card or sticker on the boiler or controls. A house that is maintained by a rental agent sometimes uses cheap tradesmen rather than good ones, so if you are chattingt to your neighbours, see if they have a personal recommendation. Websites that traders pay to be listed on are advertisements, and the "recommendations" may be screened by the advertisers, so a personal recommendation is much better.

The HW cylinder is rather old and would be the next thing I'd think about replacing, especially if you have a bathroom and separate shower and there is not enough HW.

p.s.

If the programmer/timer had been set to "gravity" when it was installed, this means that HW has to be on for CH to work. It's a rookie error, though, and your system looks fully pumped (I can't see the motorised valve well enough to be sure).

Thanks all. I have booked an engineer for Monday - I'm using the same people I used in the old house so I know they're good.

Thank you everyone - in the meantime I'll keep it all a bit warm by rotating the heating and running down the hot water tank to keep it going.