Anyone know anything about central heating ?

[blah blah]

My central heating seems to be slowly dying. Everything looks & sounds right, but only half of the radiators seem to get any heat. If they are all switched on, I only get heat upstairs, so thinking there might be an air bubble I switched them all off forcing the heat to the downstairs ones which then worked fine. Switch the upstairs back on and the downstairs go off.

Does this mean the pump is not strong enough/working properly ? Or there isn't enough hot water to go round ? Or any other ideas ?

Desperately trying to put off calling a plumber cos they charge a bloody fortune.

[land_of_bo]

Try bleeding them, could be trappe air. You should have a little key type spanner, open the valves enough to let air out and have something ready to catch any drips once all the air is out.

[blah blah]

tried that already, one or two of the valves are totally fucked (they are now more round than square so the key or even a spanner wont shift them) but when they do heat up, they heat all the way - if they need bleeding, isn't the top colder than the bottom ?

[jayohaitchenn]

Sounds like your pump is struggling. I had a new pump fitted a while back - cost about £80 in total.

Have a listen to it, you should be able to tell if it is having a hard time.

[suttonred]

Check your water pressure on the boiler is ok (if you can)

[blah blah]

Check your water pressure on the boiler is ok (if you can)

How do you do this ?

[suttonred]

Depends on your boiler type. I have a Worcester bosch with a gauge on the front, if you have one the dial will show you what your pressure is.

[blah blah]

Think my old boiler is about 20 years old (cue the wife jokes......). Theres no gauges on it at all

[jimmy_onions]

If it is a worcester, get out a worcester engineer. Very good, fair, trustworthy, reasonable prices etc.
Avoid yellow pages emergency plumbers like the plague. Whatever the problem is they will replace the Circuit board for about £700.

[Rustle]

It depends on what type of boiler you have,If you have a hot water tank in the bedroom or a tank in what was called an airing cupboard,you'll find there is a release valve that you can gently unscrew,this will clear the air bubble.A word warning be careful tho as this pipe where the valve is can be bloody hot.

I doubt this is an air bubble tho as you usually get the pipes banging or making some kind of noise when you have trapped air and i doubt every radiator needs bleeding,that would be very unusual.

It all depends on what boiler you have at the end of the day.

[magicroundabout]

sign upto british gas boiler care. roughly £20pm which covers everything like this and you wont pay a penny for anything which needs fixing.

i had it once where one of my radiators wasn't being heated (like yourself) and it was a new pump/circuit board which cost hundreds and i paid nothing.

well worth it

[jayohaitchenn]

sign upto british gas boiler care. roughly £20pm which covers everything like this and you wont pay a penny for anything which needs fixing.

i had it once where one of my radiators wasn't being heated (like yourself) and it was a new pump/circuit board which cost hundreds and i paid nothing.

well worth it

What if the problem is with the radiators or pipes themselves? Is this still covered? If so, I'm getting it!

[suttonred]

Think my old boiler is about 20 years old (cue the wife jokes......). Theres no gauges on it at all

You've done well, although probably time to get the wallet dusted as the normal life expectancy is 10-12 years.

[blah blah]

Thanks for the advice so far, I've also phoned a plumber at random from google, he reckons the pumps gone too.

Just out of interest, has anyone had a new boiler installed recently ? How much is this likely to set me back ?

[Bogus Dave]

£43.68