Really noisy central heating, banging pipes

seamus

Hopefully someone here can point me in the right direction. Recently moved into a place, built in the 80s, so standard central heating setup with an external oil boiler and a hot water immersion tank upstairs.

The problem I'm having is the pipes click, knock and bang quite a bit when the heating comes on. Don't care about during the day, but it can be very annoying at night. Once the rads start getting warm it goes away, it's just after the initial firing up.
I assumed it was pretty standard in an oldish house that the metal expands and makes noise, but from doing a few searches it seems like it shouldn't be happening and can be fixed.

In addition, the rads get really hot. Like, scald yourself hot. It's great in that the house is toasty in about 20 minutes, but I have a young one in the house who may not have the sense and may actually burn herself on a rad one day. Turning down the rads using the knob doesn't really seem to do anything except make it take longer for them to get scalding hot.

Could the two be related?


Separately, there's *something* in the fireplace. There's some kind of contraption that sits in the fireplace beside the actual hearth. It's covered over, I have to remove a wooden section from the wall to get access to it.
And there's a switch on the wall that apparently turns this contraption on (well it starts humming anyway). Is this some kind of pump that can be used for heating water when the fire is lit?

K.Flyer

seamus wrote: »

Hopefully someone here can point me in the right direction. Recently moved into a place, built in the 80s, so standard central heating setup with an external oil boiler and a hot water immersion tank upstairs.

The problem I'm having is the pipes click, knock and bang quite a bit when the heating comes on. Don't care about during the day, but it can be very annoying at night. Once the rads start getting warm it goes away, it's just after the initial firing up.
I assumed it was pretty standard in an oldish house that the metal expands and makes noise, but from doing a few searches it seems like it shouldn't be happening and can be fixed.

This is usually metal pipes "creeping" against wood as it expands and contracts.
It can usually be remedied, but it will involve identifying where it is occuring and exposing the pipework.

seamus wrote: »

In addition, the rads get really hot. Like, scald yourself hot. It's great in that the house is toasty in about 20 minutes, but I have a young one in the house who may not have the sense and may actually burn herself on a rad one day. Turning down the rads using the knob doesn't really seem to do anything except make it take longer for them to get scalding hot.

Could the two be related?

If you want to lower the temperature of the radiators, then turn down the thermostat on the oil boiler to a preffered degree. This may lessen your creaking sounds, but not guaranteed.

seamus wrote: »

Separately, there's *something* in the fireplace. There's some kind of contraption that sits in the fireplace beside the actual hearth. It's covered over, I have to remove a wooden section from the wall to get access to it.
And there's a switch on the wall that apparently turns this contraption on (well it starts humming anyway). Is this some kind of pump that can be used for heating water when the fire is lit?

It sounds like you have a back boiler in the fireplace and the humming is the circulation pump to heat the radiators.

If you have only moved in then I would suggest having your oil boiler serviced and safety checked to ensure all is well in that area.
A good tech will ensure that its safe and explain all of the controls to you.