Radiator Woes

[chickenstrip]

TL;DR as highlighted.

So, selling the house, just put it on the market and two radiators have packed up (of course ).

All but one radiator in the house are twin entry with 15mm pipe, so a cheap job by the looks of it. The two that have stopped getting warm are twin entry. British Gas engineer who looked at it yesterday said that there was probably a blockage or two in the narrow pipes, but because of the twin entry valves, it can't be flushed. We were then quoted £1300 to replace all the pipework and convert all rads to single entry, with a "guarantee" (spoken) that the system would be fully functional after this.

Anybody with a bit of knowledge in these matters? Does that sound right? Is there a quick fix (we only need it all to work until the place is sold, so if there's a quick, temporary fix...)? What would you do now?

A little bit of additional info: all the other radiators work, the bathroom one needs regular bleeding though. The boiler was recently serviced and although old, works well. The engineer who visited yesterday did manage to clean quite a lot of gunge out, but to no avail. As far as I know, he just drained and refilled, and cleaned the bottom of the tank.
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[RhynoCZ]

Drop 1000 pounds, and sell it as it is.
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[chickenstrip]

[mudcow007]

im no plumber but....

if you were to remove one fo the blocked rads an run a hose pipe through it, what would happen?

try a magnet along the pipe an see if it gets stuck (magnetised) that could be your blockage

(just googled it)

oh also could it be air locked?

[Rogerborg]

How do houses know? In the interval between me moving out my last house and the new owners moving in, the downstairs radiators and the shower all packed up, legit.

Turns out they were intending to upgrade them anyway, and £500 cash kept us from wasting time and money on wrangling.

British Gas engineer? Give a local independent a try.
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[chris-red]

When people ask for advice on here they are looking for people with experience, not people to google it for them, I'm sure the OP knows how google works. I very much doubt it is air locked. This is a very basic issue and OP/BG would have spotted it.

However one thing I will say is I thought my rad was airlocked, and I screwed the bleed nipple and nothing came out. Turned out the bleeder was blocked. Completely remove the bleed valve and then poke it with something small and spiky. It's unlikely but worth a go before throwing £???? at it
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[chickenstrip]

[mudcow007]

I guess the plumber who came out would have checked the bleed valves - for air locked

https://www.homeserve.com/help-advice/boiler-heating/how-to-bleed-a-radiator

maybe worth going around all the rads, when you open the bleeds you will get a drop in pressure on the boiler, so you may have to refill it

[chickenstrip]

[stinkwheel]

Try turning all the other radiators off except one of the blocked ones. Turn that on full and give the valve a good rap with a mallet.

It's worked for me before with a "dead" radiator.

If it's a pressurised system, you could even try letting a bit more water pressure in (within reason).
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[KaGantua]

is the pin stuck?

it could be it turns to let water in/ out but the actual bearing underneath is seized....

try tightening/ loosening a few times see how you go

[DrDonnyBrago]

On a related note...

How would the buyers know? Is it covered in a homebuyers survey?

I ask because I'm buying a house, not because I want to sell a borked one .

[Skudd]

Don't tell of faults selling, sort them out as a buyer, that is what you do. Nothing is perfect and you will change stuff any way. Just one of those things that happens when you buy/sell houses.
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[RhynoCZ]

[zark]

Depending on how much you want to fix it - or whether you're asking if you can bodge it and sell the house...

Assuming it used to work... Turn off both parts of the valve to the dodgy rad.

Undo the pipework (the flow pipe will be a long pipe inside the radiator)

Remove rad from wall, blast hose through it in the garden til the water comes out clean. Open each valve a little bit one at a time to make sure water comes out and the valve isn't blocked.

Refit rad, open valves, open air vent to fill rad and check it all gets hot.

If not - then the hot water isn't getting through the valve(s), which means draining down the system to replace.
It's not rocket science, just be methodical.


Or - just sell the house.

[Fizzer Thou]

[Suntan Sid]

I've had the same problem as Fizzer Thou describes, the CH in the house in Cyprus was used very irregularly and the water is super hard there.
When I fired the heating up in winter I had to go round every thermostatic valve and free each pin, they all stuck in place when not being used!
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[swampy]

[chickenstrip]

They're not thermostatic valves

It would seem that it's one or more blockages in the pipes somewhere. The pipe feed to one of the radiators in question (which I've subsequently realised is single entry) sometimes gets warm, sometimes not. But the radiator itself never gets warm.

I don't think we'll be going with any repairs at this stage, but will negotiate a reduction in the house sale, or offer a "cash-back" incentive, if a prospective buyer pulls us up on it. I have a figure in my mind that I'd be happy to walk away with, and I don't think this will put that in danger.

Thanks to all for advice and suggestions given here though, it's appreciated, and may stand me in good stead for the future
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[hmmmnz]

i think we had the same problem in our house, in reguards to the radiator pipe being blocked not the radiator

i flushed the whole system a couple of times and then did a "power flush with the hose connected,
made it better, but not completly unblocked,
i then used kamco hyper flush

put that in the system for a week running it as per normal,
then drained it all out again, flushed, and refilled,
bang all good,

a bit of a palava but seemed to work
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[chickenstrip]

[Al]

I think the issue with power flushing those twin entry valves is that they have a tiny feeder tube that extends along the radiator and there is risk of this blowing off when flushed. The tube is very thin so a flush would be pretty ineffective anyway.
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[kawakid]

£1300 wow, where in the world do you,live.
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[RhynoCZ]

[Fowlersrs]

Interesting, I do this for a living so il see if I can be of any help.

Could u take a photo of said twin or single entry radiators, this is so I can see what u mean as I've heard of single pipe systems and the more common practice two pipe system now, single pipe is floored in it's desgin and was used in the early days before twin pipe systems where used.

If the engineers had the radiators off the wall and flushed them through with water and they where ok then it's gotta be in the pipe work, what diameter pipe work feeds your radiators, please tell me it's not microbore. To check the flow to the radiators u can actually turn the valves off, take the rad off the wall and then with a bucket by the valve open the valve to see what flow u get through, it should piss out, if it doesn't then there's your prob. No circulation = cold radiator.

I've had houses where I've had to repipe radiators because the pipes feeding it have been literally blocked solid, they where 15mm diameter but where not flushed properly after being on a back boiler system, I could even get a drill bit down them they where that blocked.

The problem with all this power flushing bollocks is that if a system is past a certain point no amount of flushing will solve it, it's cut and replace tbh.

Sounds to me like British gas have offered to repipe the rads affected?