88V8 wrote:Bouleversee wrote:Well, that was yesterday afternoon and maybe they weren't thawed by the time they left though the pipes are very thin but he should have known that.
All the other rads got hot but now none of them are because the boiler is not igniting. I did ask him if had checked the tank and the ballcock and he said yes. I don't see any evidence of an overflow dripping outside. Come to think of it, I think they may have had a couple of buckets with them. I wish I had watched what they were doing.
Pipes will have thawed in a couple of hours.
Buckets... when changing the valves they will have had to drain the rads. That water should then have been put back into the system via the header tank.
Should have.
Overflow... no...
The question is whether there's any water at all in the tank... not whether there's too much.
And whether the valve from the tank to the system is turned on, as it should be.
When freezing, they will likely have turned off the lockshield valves... the ones at the opposite end of the rad. I suppose they turned them back on? That would stop the rads heating although you would still be able to bleed water out.
If they are on, don't disturb the setting as those valves are used to balance the system, and they should have been re-opened to the exact same extent as they were before.
If the house is well insulated, can leave heating on all day. If not well insulated, let it go off during the day.
V8
The rads whose pipes were frozen and trvs replaced are not the ones which were not getting hot and seem to lack water; those are on the floor above. I agree that any water removed from rads should be replaced in the header tank which the certainly didn't do (he only looked for it when he found the upstairs rads weren't heating and didn't have enough/any water. How long should they take to fill with a small bore pipe system? Perhaps I should have given it longer but I couldn't hear anything happening. I had asked him to check whether there was sufficient inhibitor in the system but he didn't. Is there a test for this?
He has just phoned me finally and is going to ring later to make an appt. to come on Monday. Thinks there may be a blockage in the pipework and asked me how long it is since it was drained down. No idea. He thinks I ought to have a sealed system as the one at the other end of the house is apparently.
As regards the overflow, I just wondered whether a blockage might have caused a build up in the tank because it couldn't get to the rads. causing an overflow but I accept what you say. If the tank is full, doesn't that indicated a blockage somewhere? I wonder if they did monitor the settings of the lockshield valves. They certainly didn't go round the circuit checking the return temp. was the same on all once the system had got up to temperature.
I think I should have been left a leaflet about the new valves. I find it hard to read that tiny grey print on my laptop. I did make this out, however:
An automatic differential bi-pass valve must be fitted in conjunction with all TRV systems. No idea whether that has been done.
Chris: I'll contact your chap if my engineer(s) don't sort it out on Monday or propose something new and expensive. Might have a word with him before then.