Rads only heating on the outside

Wetbench4

Hi all, I recently turned on the gas heating after being off for months and i noticed that all the rads are only heating up on the top and outer sides and the copper pipes leading in and away from the rads. I tried bleeding them all and found no air. The little pressure gauge on the boiler says the pressure is at 1 when switched off and goes up to about 2.5/ 3 after being on for a while. Can't really afford to get it serviced, in fact the boiler has never been serviced since it was installed in late 2005, house was a new build bought by myself in late 2005.
Does anyone recognise these symptoms and would you know if this is something small or big?

Any help is greatly appreciated

Robbie.G

Wetbench4 wrote: »

Hi all, I recently turned on the gas heating after being off for months and i noticed that all the rads are only heating up on the top and outer sides and the copper pipes leading in and away from the rads. I tried bleeding them all and found no air. The little pressure gauge on the boiler says the pressure is at 1 when switched off and goes up to about 2.5/ 3 after being on for a while. Can't really afford to get it serviced, in fact the boiler has never been serviced since it was installed in late 2005, house was a new build bought by myself in late 2005.
Does anyone recognise these symptoms and would you know if this is something small or big?

Any help is greatly appreciated

Sounds like a sludge problem powerflushing is really the only option to get the rads to heat fully again.
Costs around €400-500 depending on survey.
The reason why the sludge is there needs to be looked into

Wearb

Wetbench4 wrote: »

Hi all, I recently turned on the gas heating after being off for months and i noticed that all the rads are only heating up on the top and outer sides and the copper pipes leading in and away from the rads. I tried bleeding them all and found no air. The little pressure gauge on the boiler says the pressure is at 1 when switched off and goes up to about 2.5/ 3 after being on for a while. Can't really afford to get it serviced, in fact the boiler has never been serviced since it was installed in late 2005, house was a new build bought by myself in late 2005.
Does anyone recognise these symptoms and would you know if this is something small or big?

Any help is greatly appreciated

Try turning off most of the rads and see if you still have the same problem with the one left on.

Sleeper12

Like Robbie.G says. Its sludge.

Dtp1979

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Like Robbie.G says. Its sludge.

More than likely sludge. If you leave this problem untreated, then first thing to go will probably be your heat exchanger. What type of boiler do you have?

DGOBS

If you boiler and ch system hasn't been serviced in 9 years, it is certainly time it was looked at!