Plumbed

[ffutures]

A plumber who has done some jobs for my sister over the years took a look at my heating system tonight. The verdict; nothing wrong with the pipes, no silt in the radiators, just some fairly crappy radiator valves. Two hours and a lot of bashing with a hammer later, six out of seven radiators are red hot, the seventh (fortunately the one I least need) is slowly getting warm, and will probably be OK eventually. Total cost forty quid, as compared to the £500+ I was being quoted for power flushing or the hundred plus for chemical treatment. Apparently most power flushing is a con - it's only really needed if you go over to a condenser boiler and have to get the pipes cleared completely to avoid corroding its innards.

As you can probably imagine, this is a BIG relief!

Only problem now is that I need to leave the radiators running for a couple of days to let the valve rubbers soften, and it's actually quite warm...

Comments

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

"it's actually quite warm..."

Release the snakes!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a relief! Actually it probably sounds like a lot of strange noises in the pipes...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Exactly right - lots of clicking etc.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

They'll probably break out on their own sooner or later.

[molly-brown.livejournal.com]

You must have your own central heating guardian angel to get a plumber so quickly and then only be charged forty quid.

Well done you!

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

That sounds fantastic!

Is he/she available to come look at my system and give me a quote? (TW14)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Doubt it - he's fairly local and it's taken nearly a month to get him over here, he's already got more work than he can handle. I'll ask though.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's actually taken just under a month to get him here - I'd already been waiting a couple of weeks when I first posted about this.

[armb.livejournal.com]

> Total cost forty quid

For two hours work and seven sets of replacement radiator valves? That sounds like excellent value.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

No replacements - he's got the old ones working again, the idea is apparently that if I leave them on continuously for a few days the rubber bits inside them will revert to the correct position. Seems to be working, even the one that wasn't working last night seems to be partially open today.