One half of rad warm, the other cold?

tommy21

Hoping someone can advise - a rad in the middle of our house is very hot on one side and cold on the other (as opposed to the usual top half/bottom half warm or cold) - it is literally like a split down the middle. I have bled it and adjusted the temperature to full (as much as is possible with the twisting knob we have ancient old-style radiators) but it has not made any difference.

Should I bleed it again and allow a lot of water to leave system (will this depressurise system though?), or is this option clearly not the solution?

Only other thing it could be is silt or something or gunk blocking it meaning I need to remove and clean it (hope not!).

Just to point out it has been like this for ages and got it into my head to fix it, it is not cold temperature/pipe related.

Cheers

edit: actually after checking, one side is completely cold, the other is about 75% fine, but at very bottom it is actually mostly cold...

mad m

Id say its Silt to be honest........It might be a case of taking it off and flushing it out. Have you tried to put heating on full blast,turn off all rads except this one and see if it gets hot...

Buford T Justice

Another option would be to add an a sludge remover to the system for two weeks, then drain the system and add an inhibitor. If sludge is the cause, the problem solved.

That, or you could go with a powerflush and get the powerflush guy to add an inhibitor to the system when he's finished.

It does sound like sludge to me.

tommy21

mad m wrote: »

Id say its Silt to be honest........It might be a case of taking it off and flushing it out. Have you tried to put heating on full blast,turn off all rads except this one and see if it gets hot...

Have not tried that as I am afraid I will unbalance them all just before Christmas! I've seen a few Youtube videos on how to remove a rad so might give that a go when Christmas is over.

tommy21

Fingers McGee wrote: »

Another option would be to add an a sludge remover to the system for two weeks, then drain the system and add an inhibitor. If sludge is the cause, the problem solved.

That, or you could go with a powerflush and get the powerflush guy to add an inhibitor to the system when he's finished.

It does sound like sludge to me.

Interesting solution - might look into this too - presume its Sludge as it always worked fine before.

Buford T Justice

tommy21 wrote: »

Interesting solution - might look into this too - presume its Sludge as it always worked fine before.

My own system was crippled with it a while ago.

tommy21

That powerflush option might be the way - we have a similar problems with other rads in the house to a lesser extent - 600€ for it (well that's for 10 rads, we have 12) from Bóird Gáis. I suppose you would get that back over time through better efficiency?