OT Plumbing.

Do you *have* to drain the entire system to replace a leaking radiator
valve?

 

Usually, yes.

Depends though.

If it's upstairs, you can drain it down enough just to empty the top rads.

Also, possibly, you could freeze the pipe the leaky valve is on, shut
off the other valve, empty just that one rad, and hope that everything
holds.

It's not difficult to drain the whole thing down, you can even keep the
water and use it again, but the additive they put in is not that
expensive to replace.

 

Right, ta.

Downstairs, last radiator in the circle.

With my current run of luck I'm not risking it. GAMI time.

I think I've still got additive from when the boiler was replaced.

 

From people who've tried this it seems that there's a fair chance of
it all going wrong and starting to leak.

 

I once saw someone who didn't.

A plumber came to just have a look at the valve in the cloakroom radiator
at a theatre I worked at. He foolishly attacked it with a spanner without
thinking that there were 4 floors of scalding hot water behind it. The
only thing to do was run away. He turned a huge building into a sauna in
30 seconds. It took 3 hours for the system to drain. The reception area
was flooded, carpet was fubar, ceiling plasterboard was sagging from the
steam. It took nearly 2 weeks to get the humidity back to normal.

All in all a very expensive error.

 

Been there, tried that :-(

<Steady drip from joint>

<Tighten joint a bit>

<Still a bit of a drip>

<Tightens a bit more>

<Still drips>

<Once last tighten>

<Something gives inside the joint, water starts to gush out>

<Expletives and mad dash for the hose etc, to drain the system before
it floods the house>


Always best to have everything to hand to drain the system "just in
case you have to"

Cheers,

John

 

No, you should be able to either close the valve, drain that rad &
freeze the pipe before replacing it, or close all the other rad valves
to stop them emptying & then drain whatever's in the pipes. You might
get a bit of a trickle from other rads if the valves don't seal
properly.

If you do close the other valves, make a note of how many turns they
need & put them back to the same place afterwards otherwise you'll
screw the balancing up.

--
Krusty

'03 Tiger 955i
'02 MV Senna (for sale) '96 Tiger (for sale)
'79 Fantic Hiro 250 (for sale) '81 Corvette (for sale)

 

That's if they were ever balanced in the first place. Most places I've
lived they've always been full on, not balanced properly, and I could
never set it right as I never cba to find out which order the rads were
in. One place had microbore, and I haven't a clue how to balance them.
One rad would always take forever to warm up compared to the rest.

 

Been in a similar situation in the druckers coffee shop in banbury , fire system
engineers shuts down the system , kills two circuits cracks open a 4 inch pipe ,
thats when he realised that the system had three circuits , 12 weeks of refurb down
the pan in less than 2 minutes

I was so glad that they were working directly to the client not me

 

The inside of the valve was fubared. It now has a shiny new valve. My
radiators are so old they don't have drain points, cue much merriment
trying to drain from the boiler.

All done now, though apparently I need a power flush - £400 that can
wait. Particularly as I swear it was done when the new boiler was
fitted not that long back. Still an impressive amount of sludge in the
radiator.

Oh and fitting a magnet to the system was mentioned. I nodded and
smiled.

 

This has got to be some kind of record - four hours from deciding to
call in a Man and getting the job finished? What kind of incentives
were you offering?

 

Cold hard cash.

They're not quite done, one is still fiddling around in the bedroom.

 

Popdown the plumb centre fernox do a chemical cleaner for radiator systems , once
flushed put fenox inhibitor into the system .

Probably cost you about £30.00

 

How much did he pay?

 

<Faints>

 

They? There's more than one?

 

Oh the usual, 'hand over your mortal soul and I let you leave the
house' deal.

I even gave him a plaster for the neck wounds.

 

Assuming you are talking about the heating system, snake oil.

Snake oil +1

 

I've got a bottle of inhibitor, so I'd just need the cleaner - it's
the faffing about flushing the system then bleeding I can't be doing
with.

 

The boss turned up to make sure the boy had fitted the valve properly.