dyno-tron
Member
- Messages
- 444
- Location
- Near Chester, UK
MIL has had issues with central heating since moved in 15 years ago, loads of visits by plumbers, service dudes etc to solve the issues. Basically, has to leave heating on all the time otherwise it takes a day or two to get warm.
Over the years she's had £1200 worth of power flushes, trv replacements, 3way valve replaced twice the rewired correctly (again). Lots of BS "it's the last rad, they never get hot" and other carp excuses. I never got involved as it's always too much bother (if you know what I mean).
She's been away for a few days (CH off) and main lounge rad not getting warm.
I went round this morning to see what I could do as the house was really cold and no plumbers available (she's 76 so can't have it cold for long so a bit of an emergency)
All rads cold at bottom warm at top except for 2 x small rads at bottom & top of stairs, these don't have trvs and are blistering hot, and loung rad is stone cold.
Spent about 15 mins working out how it is plumbed and concluded that there is no decent flow to most of the rads. Found a small pipe connecting feed and return with a stop valve in it (wide open), that must be bleeding most of the flow.
So, shut the stop valve then opened it half a turn. Closed the 2 hot rads down to limit their flow.
Bingo! All the rads now get very hot, now I need to go back and spend some time balancing all the rads. That's for another day.
I know there are a lot of decent tradesmen around so respect to them, but I get really annoyed with tradespeople charging good money for a carp job!!!
Brickies working in winter on our extension, taking a week to build a simple block wall (2 days work max) complaining that the mortar was taking too long to go off after adding loads or retarder!!
Tarmac dudes, ran out of tarmac twice and had to wait hours for reloads after their driver couldn't find the depot! Causing joins where there shouldn't be.
Roofers not making birds mouth cutouts in the rafters, only found out after a few years when the roof started to look like it was sliding off. Took a bit of creative engineering to solve that without taking it all off!
I'm not a builder, plumber, electrician or navvy and don't want to be, but I think I need to improve my mind reading skills to weed out the idiots!
We've got plasterers in this weekend, let's see how that goes.
Over the years she's had £1200 worth of power flushes, trv replacements, 3way valve replaced twice the rewired correctly (again). Lots of BS "it's the last rad, they never get hot" and other carp excuses. I never got involved as it's always too much bother (if you know what I mean).
She's been away for a few days (CH off) and main lounge rad not getting warm.
I went round this morning to see what I could do as the house was really cold and no plumbers available (she's 76 so can't have it cold for long so a bit of an emergency)
All rads cold at bottom warm at top except for 2 x small rads at bottom & top of stairs, these don't have trvs and are blistering hot, and loung rad is stone cold.
Spent about 15 mins working out how it is plumbed and concluded that there is no decent flow to most of the rads. Found a small pipe connecting feed and return with a stop valve in it (wide open), that must be bleeding most of the flow.
So, shut the stop valve then opened it half a turn. Closed the 2 hot rads down to limit their flow.
Bingo! All the rads now get very hot, now I need to go back and spend some time balancing all the rads. That's for another day.
I know there are a lot of decent tradesmen around so respect to them, but I get really annoyed with tradespeople charging good money for a carp job!!!
Brickies working in winter on our extension, taking a week to build a simple block wall (2 days work max) complaining that the mortar was taking too long to go off after adding loads or retarder!!
Tarmac dudes, ran out of tarmac twice and had to wait hours for reloads after their driver couldn't find the depot! Causing joins where there shouldn't be.
Roofers not making birds mouth cutouts in the rafters, only found out after a few years when the roof started to look like it was sliding off. Took a bit of creative engineering to solve that without taking it all off!
I'm not a builder, plumber, electrician or navvy and don't want to be, but I think I need to improve my mind reading skills to weed out the idiots!
We've got plasterers in this weekend, let's see how that goes.