Are your radiators on yet?

P.S. – forgot to say, only times I have ever had to bleed any rads since the heating was installed in 1979 have been when I’ve drained all or part of the system, such as taking a rad off to decorate, having a rad replaced (just the one) or when the boiler was moved when the workshop was built. In between times I seem to have been incredibly lucky and never ever had to bleed any of them.

Flushing the system is easily done using the system drain c**k that is supposed to be fitted at the lowest point of every system and has a hose tail on it to connect to a garden hose taking the dirty water outside. Got to say I rarely do this – I rely on Ferronox inhibitor in the system as recommended by the plumber who services the boiler each year. Seems to work – 33 years for a boiler and all but one of the rads can’t be bad.

It does depend on where you live .
Have had the heating on for a 2/3 weeks now, as I do feel a temperature of >18C is necessary in the occupied rooms and with outside temperatures struggling to hit 10C that isnt going to happen without some help !!

Usually check for seepage from the radiator/valve joints and top up the inhibitor during the summer.
Always a good idea to exercise all the valves as well – it stops them seizing up.

@rarrar – very true, though personally I could not stand 18 or higher indoors (unless I’m going to walk about starkers!). My heating has always been set to 15 which is just about right for me, though on very bitter winter mornings getting undressed for a shower can be a little chilly at 6 a.m.!!!

I think we’re quite lucky here in South Yorkshire – we don’t often seem to get the bitter cold of the Pennines, even though I am barely 8 miles away from the start of the Pennine Way. We do get all the East-Pennine rain though! 🙁

Oh dear .. Which? profanity filter doesn’t like plumbing terms .. drain c**k was what I tried to type above. I won’t even test it with gas n1pp1es and ba11 taps!

My boiler, radiators and pump are all about the same age as Dave’s and are working fine. I have Fernox in the system too. Rarrar makes a good point about giving radiator valves exercise to prevent them sticking. Despite this, I have had to replace several thermostatic valves.

Anyone whose water is heated by gravity should run the pump every week or two over the summer months to prevent it seizing or silting up. That should not happen if the pump is sited correctly but some installers ignore the recommendation and mount pumps horizontally at the lowest point in the system.

I don’t like ‘National Radiator Day’ because it seems to be promoting one company’s product.

My boiler and I assume many others have a pump exercise function built in this spins up the pump and activates the CH diverter valve once every day if unused.

@Patrick.
No worries Patrick – I don’t seriously expect Which? to mark C**k as acceptable as it is likely to be abused.
My plumber and I do, however, have regular conversations about how crazy it is that in order to be politically correct plumbers’ merchants are no longer supposed to use the three words I alluded to, which is mad given that they are the technically correct words for the items.

DELIGHTED to hear the Which? team are in onesies! When’s the review / report on them and when do we see a pic of you all wearing them in the office?! Great news – see how much Which? saves on heating the office this year! (No, I know you won’t really all be wearing them all season!)

Good job you dont live in the recently flooded town of C###ermouth .
I failed to set up Yahoo accounts for a couple of organisations there a few years ago just wouldnt accept the name even as a username !

@rarrar ….. Scunthorpe council had a similar problem several years ago …. dunno if that will pass the filter.

However, we digress ….. this convo is meant to be about heating rather than profanity filters. We’ll get told off by the top cat in the onesie 😉

Nice one Patrick – someone else who likes fresh air and ventilation! Shame there are not more people who think the same way in many stuffy offices up and down the country.

I would not replace the system either. New boilers may be more efficient but have a reputation for unreliability.

It is good that you don’t have to bleed the radiators but it is generally very easy and quick to do.

If they need bleeding a lot then either air is being sucked into the system, gas is being generated due to lack of inhibitor or you have a leak and are constantly adding new “gassy” water to the system from the header tank if you have one.

Thanks for the suggestions, rarrar. I had the same thoughts when I moved in to my house 30 years ago, but I never managed to find out why my hall radiator needed to be bled every month or so.

The system had inhibitor and I have replaced it twice without any change. If part of the ‘air’ in the radiator is hydrogen produced by corrosion then there is not enough to burn, and there is very little sludge in the radiators. I am losing little water because I can turn off the header tank supply for months and it does not empty. It is a mystery but fitting an automatic bleed valve to the affected radiator means that it no longer needs to be bled.

I hope that your suggestions might help someone else.

@Wavechange.

My parents’ bedroom radiator always filled with air very fast from the day it was installed in 1969 until long after my dad died when in 2005 my mum asked the plumber who services the boiler every year about it.

The plumber explained that air will get sucked INTO the system through pin-prick holes or microscopic gaps in thread-seal which are too small for water to leak out.

He looked at the affected radiator and decided that right from day one the blank plug in the top of the rad at the opposite end from the bleeder has not been tightened quite as far as it should.

A quick nip with his spanner and, 26 years after installation, all the air gathering stopped like magic!

It just could be that your hall rad (or a pipe joint very near to it) has such a microscopic ‘leak’.

Dave D

Thanks for the suggestion. Air can certainly be pulled into a CH system when the pump is running.. My parents’ upstairs radiators could not be bled unless the pump was switched off, and opening the bleed screws would pull in air.

I’ve given up trying to fix the problem and my one automatic bleed valve keeps the offending radiator full.

As long as the radiator is giving out enough heat to warm the room then dusting and bleeding are not necessary
They don’t make the radiators much less efficient ( i.e. wasting heat) , they will just have a lower output.
Wearing thicker clothing , getting used to a lower temperature ( difficult when many offices are over heated) and only heating the rooms is use will make a big difference in heating costs as does being “at home” less.

It is not necessarily difficult but you will need to do a bit of reading and some preparation, such as flushing the system. Inhibitor is best added to a new CH system, following the instructions carefully.

It is well worth doing because without inhibitor, steel radiators will gradually corrode internally and fill with black sludge that can make them less effective and cause problems with circulating pumps, etc. Black sludge can make a horrible mess of carpets if radiators have to be removed or start leaking due to corrosion.

It is important to record what inhibitor has been added because topping up with another brand could cause problems. Label the system with what has been used and when it was added.

I’m not an expert, but here are my thoughts….

I suggest you buy a combined corrosion inhibitor and antifreeze, or find an antifreeze that is compatible with the present inhibitor.

Me and many others waste energy by leaving the central heating to come on if the temperature falls below 5 or 10C.

You also need to consider what to do about the hot and cold water system. Even a small amount of water left in a pipe can freeze and cause a burst. Obviously if the water is off at the main, the possibility of flooding is less.

Isn’t this why most people take holidays in the summer? 🙂

You will find cheaper products that will do the same job but I have no idea if they will make much of a difference. If they did, I think they would be recommended more frequently.

Thank you, Rachelle. A great help.

If your existing boiler is still in serviceable condition and reasonably reliable, I suggest you keep it. New boilers are more efficient but many have found them unreliable and expensive to repair.

I cannot comment about the radiators but you could find that they are worth money if they are very old and in reasonable condition.

Jacqui

I cannot see any scientific basis for a difference in costs. There may be a difference in how quickly they warm the rooms, but the same would apply if you compared small and large radiators. Here is a link to what looks like reasonable information. I know nothing about the company and the page just turned up using a Google search: https://www.castrads.com/frequently-asked-questions/buying-cast-iron-radiators/are-cast-iron-radiators-as-efficient-as-modern-radiators/

If someone has sold you new radiators on the basis that they will save money, I would be very interested to see their explanation.

Bought rads at auction, will be able to sell again for profit – my business works on this premise, so no hardship. The link was extremely usefull! Many many thanks. Jacqui

I think you could possibly find that the new boilers simply cannot heat up the old rad’s in a reasonable time nor keep them properly hot in very cold weather. New boilers are actually not at all efficient unless installed in very specific ways with very specific heating system components. I’m not a boiler engineer but my highly respected plumber and heating engineer tells me, and I’ve heard it said on consumer programmes like You and Yours and Watchdog, that new boilers will only work efficiently or effectively if they are installed into “ideal” systems.

Therefore I suspect that the answer to your question is that new rads alone are not more efficient and that the new boiler alone is actually very inefficient, but if you replace both boiler and rads you **might** manage to achieve a slight efficiency saving and maintain a reasonable heat-up time.

Wavechange’s original answer, which you did not like, is actually the best advice: don’t change the boiler. Your new one won’t be designed to last more than 8 years, and quite possibly won’t even do that long, it will be unreliable – especially heating up old style rads – at the side of the existing one and could end up costing you far more to run than your existing one.

Even the boiler manufacturers openly admit that you will never save enough on gas in the boiler’s life time to cover the cost of having it put in; you’re on to a loser if you are doing this to save cash.

If you have no choice but to replace it then I think you might well need to replace the rads too to avoid multiple future failures.

Hope this helps.

Sounds like your rads need balancing, not flushing.
Have you had any changes made to the system lately? If so I’d bet my bottom dollar on it needing balancing.
Power flushing is just a rip off an often causes leaks.