Hi I'm new to this forum and as a relatively recent divorcee I'm having to learn how to fix things by myself. My radiators upstairs seem fine but the ones downstairs in the living room are hot at the bottom and cold at the top - I surmise the system needs bleeding but - and this is probably a strange question - when turning off the water supply do I do it from the kitchen stop tap or the boiler and once the system's been bled should all be OK? Thank you for assisting this 'dragon in distress'
Hi Carol, and Happy New Divorce. (I hope things are ok.) I believe you have surmised correctly -your rads need bleeding. This is done on each individual rad using a 'bleeding radiator key' - so look forward to asking your local hardware store for that. Turn off your boiler whilst you do this - on some systems it's just about possible to draw air in via the bleed screw if the pump is running! I'll see if I can find a vid on t'Tube to explain.
Thank for the vid, Things are going great thanks. TBH the only time I use the boiler is when I turn on the hot water taps. Is there a specific order to which I go round around and bleed? I've been told the radiators closest to the boiler should be done last
One of these. http://www.screwfix.com/p/radiator-valve-key/16909 We don't know what boiler you have, if you have a combi you will need to top up the system to maintain the pressure.
No particular order for the rads when bleeding them. (Yes if you are 'balancing' your systems, but that's a whole different kettle of worms). As KIAB says, a combi boiler (or a 'Megaflo' type system with an unvented hot cylinder) will have a pressure gauge on it which usually reads around 1 bar. Once the rads have been bled, this will likely have fallen, so will need topping back up. But try not to go any higher than 1. If you don't know how to top up the system, chust let us know what type of boiler you have - and a photo would be great (cough, I'm still talking about the boiler.) Wait! By 'boiler' I don't mean... OOOOHHH MMYYYYYY GAAAWDD! I'm digging myself such a hole... (pulls himself together) And if you wish to post photos, make sure they are under 2MP. Pleased things are going well, and there's lots of good folk on here who'll help with any DIY stuff.
A great approach ... there are many many jobs you can do yourself at no cost whereas too many take the expensive route of calling in a "specialist". You will get the satisfaction of knowing you did it yourself and still have the money to buy a new bag/dress, go out for a night, buy a new power drill, buy you children an extra present ... As mentioned, plenty here to give you advice or pointers.
Cooool - Carol has a sense of humour and knows when her chain is being yanked (Phew - for a moment I was worried that my oafish behaviour was taken wrongly... )
Bleed the downstairs radiators first, then go upstairs. Boiler should be off, pump not running. Depending on your boiler, some have a self purge setting which is well worth running. Hope goes ok
Absolutely no need to bleed radiators in any particular order . (And Carol is also gonna have to get used to the folk on here getting bi**hy with eachother... )
Ok. why? I always have 1 rad that "attracts"air and has to be bled once every 4/6 weeks or so. its an upstairs 1. i only ever bleed that 1.
Air rises... If you bleed upstairs first, then when you bleed downstairs any trapped air in the pipes can rise upstairs so you can end up doing the upstairs twice.
Thanks guys (and girls as it maybe ), sorry for the delay I was in work when I first posted on here. My boiler is a Vokera Maxin 24e, that is 12.5 years old that I know of (it was in when I moved in here 12.5 years ago) I do have photos but unsure whether to put them on cos they're, 28.2kb, 33.2kb and 60.9kb, If they're ok I'll put them on tomorrow. BTW I have radiator keys - I'm sure my ex hid them around the house when he was here cos I keep finding the beggars now he's gone
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