I am NO PLUMBER and the advice I suggest may WELL be bad advice for you. It's on your own head if you choose to use it! I don't know enough to tell you it's 'safe'.... simply becasue I don't know! I am just a 'bodger' and don't know any better!
We replaced all the old style radiator taps with Thermo valves (except one, as advised). Ours is a big system and, obviously we had to drain it all down to do the work. Once they were all fitted, we properly refilled the system, bled the radiators..... and got the same effects you discuss. All the plumbers ASSURED me it was an airlock or mulitple ones.
So..... It looks possible to fit a hose on the lowest drain point on your system, fix that to a mains pressure tap and fill, the system backwards..... however..... it isn't! Those drain cocks leak heavily when put under pressure so that doesn't work.
So.... I thought I refill the system, under pressure even MORE BACKWARDS.
We have an open system (with an overflow system that leads back to an OPEN header tank in the loft) and I connected the mains pressure hose to this 'breather pipe' after emptying the header tank. I then fitted a tap to the hose system and refilled the system via the overflow/breather until the water refilled the header tank from the bottom rather than though it's usual inlet pipe. After GALLONS of gas/air came back to the tank, water refilled it..... and the radiators were now correctly 'de-airlocked' and the system worked! In you case, I'd turn off the thermostats on the radiators that ARE working properly leaving FULLY open those which aren't.
For me, it was ESSENTIAL that I had control of the incoming water (via the tap) while I could actually SEE into the header tank. That meant I could stop the supply before over-flowing the tank. Don't try this method any other way or else you could EASILY flood your house: it's pretty damned Heath Robinson. It's tempting to think you could shout out to the wife to get her to control the water from the garden tap...... the sound of rushing water might drown out your voice..... don't risk it!
I know it's crude.... but it WORKED for me. Please note, this may NOT be safe with your system... I am just telling you what I did which worked for me and mine.
Finally, so much gunk and rubbish came UP the outlet INTO the header tank that I had to clean it out again..... hardly a big problem but it showed that pressurising backward from the mains via the breather helped clear rubbish out of my elderly system.
Don't forget to allow enough spave in the header tank to add Fernox (or equivalent) to prevent your system oxidising further.
Any plumber who knows that this method is STUPID, please say so QUICKLY to save him running into further problerms if he copies it!
Ian
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Any plumber/heating engineers by 'karter212000' (16 Feb 2013 @ 16:02)
