Welcome to part two of our coronavirus free help and advice
The first part we focused on common breakdown problems, this week we focus on the heating system itself and by that we mean the radiators and the valves.
It’s just so cold!
Because the virus forces people to stay at home, people are trying to interact, but they also need alone time to stay sane. And whilst you’re taking a little bit of me time the fantastic weather in the United Kingdom can vary between zero and 20° over a 24-hour period. It can do that in February, it can do that for most of the year. As we head through the most changeable months, namely spring into summer, the heating will need to be on especially for the elderly and young children. We certainly switched the heating on if it gets a bit cold.
Why is it so cold?
There’s only two aspects to this problem. The first one is that the house itself loses lots of heat. We call this heat loss. This can be caused by teenagers leaving windows open or poor insulation. The other side to this is that the heating system doesn’t produce enough heat. This is fairly uncommon. But sometimes all radiators are hot except the one in the room with you. If it’s hot at the bottom and cold at the top, good news. We can bleed the radiator. There is a video on bleeding radiators in the help section, and there are lots of videos on YouTube.
Naughty Radiator Syndrome
Okay, that’s not a real thing. What is a real thing is the radiator is hot at the top and cold bottom, and it stays that way. Two things can cause this. The first one is a build up sludge in the system meaning the radiators are full of that horrible black muck, and whilst that may have some uses that I can’t think of, it is terrible at heating houses up. This is a bit of a bad news scenario, the system needs to be flushed. If your DIY skills are strong, you already know how to isolate the radiator valves and remove the radiator. Take that radiator outside an attempt to flush the water through with a hosepipe. This can be successful, and if you are desperate, it is worth a try, but we don’t recommend it. If the radiator valve hasn’t turned for a long time then it could leak once turned off and on. You then need either more DIY skills or to get a professional in. The other reason this could happen, cold at the bottom and hot at the top, it is possible the circulation to the radiator isn’t fast enough and that one valve can be opened to increase the flow to the radiator. Another option is to turn all the other radiators down a little bit at a time until that radiator gets hotter, but not to the degree where other radiators are not warm enough either.
This radiator doesn’t work. It’s lazy.
If you check the radiator doesn’t have air in it by bleeding it, and it’s completely cold at the top and the bottom. Hope is at hand. If you have a thermostatic radiator valve which has numbers on it, they can sometimes stick. Try to take the top of this radiator valve off, usually by rotating the collar under the numbered turning part. If you can get it off safely, the easiest way is open the valve to the highest number to reduce the tension on it, then undo the collar. Once you have removed the head of the valve, the shiny T shape valve will have a little spring-loaded pin on the top. See if this presses down and comes out again freely, if it does on the radiator now gets warm, leave the radiator valve head off. You won’t be able to control the temperature of the room, but it isn’t dangerous and at least you will be warm.
That just about covers the basic problems you can have radiators, there is nothing wrong with trying to repair things yourself but please don’t try to do things unless you are confident and have some level of experience. You tube is very helpful but make sure you watch the right videos and a few of them to give yourself a fuller idea of any problems you may encounter.
