No Hot Water!

starbelgrade

I came back home after the Christmas to find no mains water & the heating not working.. it was a cold & smelly two days I can tell ya! I defrosted the mains supply pipe at the outside stopcock & under the sink, which solved the water supply problem, then tackled the heating... one of the water pipes to the boiler outside had popped out, so I fixed that, then bled the radiators & boiler pump and the heating is now working perfectly too...

Apart from one of the radiators in the kitchen which is still stone cold, and for some reason, the hot water to the taps is not heating up - it's coming out mildly tepid at best, when normally it's piping hot when the heat is on. We have an unvented cylinder in the house.

Any advice on solving the hot water & radiator problem would be much appreciated.

items

starbelgrade wrote: »

I came back home after the Christmas to find no mains water & the heating not working.. it was a cold & smelly two days I can tell ya! I defrosted the mains supply pipe at the outside stopcock & under the sink, which solved the water supply problem, then tackled the heating... one of the water pipes to the boiler outside had popped out, so I fixed that, then bled the radiators & boiler pump and the heating is now working perfectly too...

Apart from one of the radiators in the kitchen which is still stone cold, and for some reason, the hot water to the taps is not heating up - it's coming out mildly tepid at best, when normally it's piping hot when the heat is on. We have an unvented cylinder in the house.


Any advice on solving the hot water & radiator problem would be much appreciated.

Cylinder coil might be having trouble circulating down to trapped air, have a look in hot press should be a bottle vent, open up the cap on top, it should be located on top pipe going into side of coil, if you notice some air, a good deal after opening, might be a quick fix.

If not, turn boiler on, if hot water is controlled turn that on as well, set boiler temp way down, make sure system has a supply of water to top itself up.

Go into hot press, bottom pipe going into side of cylinder, if its got a valve attached close to side of cylinder make sure that it's open but only open a slight bit, just cracked open is term widely used.

Once all above is sorted. turn off some rads, all of them if you want, just one side of each will do (old rad valves might weep). If you have a switch to turn off rads, switch will do.

With your boiler still on, cold setting go back to cylinder and again open up bottle vent, see if any air comes out, close cap but not down tight (old bottle vent might weep)

Head back to boiler and turn temp up a bit so it fires up to heat water, go back to coil, check coil top pipe for heat, once it starts heating, check bottom coil pipe, if you've got circulation bottom pipe should heat up soon, very soon after.

If you've got heat in both pipes, you have circulation, your cylinder should heat as norm.

If you don't have heat @ both pipes you could have another problem, try the above first.

If all's well @ cylinder, head back to turn on rads and set boiler to normal use temp.

Best of luck, bring a towel for any weep rad valves or bottle vent.

They normally have a immersion back up which work to fashion, if you turn it on you will get hot water after a couple of hours( if it's wired), Gary.

starbelgrade

items wrote: »

Cylinder coil might be having trouble circulating down to trapped air, have a look in hot press should be a bottle vent, open up the cap on top, it should be located on top pipe going into side of coil, if you notice some air, a good deal after opening, might be a quick fix.

If not, turn boiler on, if hot water is controlled turn that on as well, set boiler temp way down, make sure system has a supply of water to top itself up.

Go into hot press, bottom pipe going into side of cylinder, if its got a valve attached close to side of cylinder make sure that it's open but only open a slight bit, just cracked open is term widely used.

Once all above is sorted. turn off some rads, all of them if you want, just one side of each will do (old rad valves might weep). If you have a switch to turn off rads, switch will do.

With your boiler still on, cold setting go back to cylinder and again open up bottle vent, see if any air comes out, close cap but not down tight (old bottle vent might weep)

Head back to boiler and turn temp up a bit so it fires up to heat water, go back to coil, check coil top pipe for heat, once it starts heating, check bottom coil pipe, if you've got circulation bottom pipe should heat up soon, very soon after.

If you've got heat in both pipes, you have circulation, your cylinder should heat as norm.

If you don't have heat @ both pipes you could have another problem, try the above first.

If all's well @ cylinder, head back to turn on rads and set boiler to normal use temp.

Best of luck, bring a towel for any weep rad valves or bottle vent.

Thanks a million for your advice - I followed it & the water is now heating up perfectly. Genius! Thanks again.