Non-heating rad help

Jimmy Conway

Looking for opinions on a non-heating rad in the mothers house. A bit of background..the central heating system is about 30 years old and all of the rads work fine albeit having to bleed them, usually to get them going after the summer lay off. The one rad that does not heat is located in an upstairs bedroom with a thermostat valve one end and a valve on the other. I have tried bleeding it, unscrewing the thermostat valve and tapping the pin to get it to pop up usually helps too, but on this rad nothing.

You can feel the heat in the pipe up to the point of the on/off valve and at the other end, thermostat end. But no amount of bleeding or tapping the pin, or turning on/off valve will get the rad to heat.

A plumber did have a look some time ago and said the problem was with the thermostat but taking a working thermostat from another rad and putting it on this one doesn't fix it so I would be inclined to think it's something else. Do rads themselves fail? They seem pretty simple although I know nothing of plumbing so open to correction.

Just looking for possible causes/opinion as it's annoying when you can feel the pipe hot but it just isn't going into the rad....

Cheers all

jimf

when you bleed the rad are you getting water or air from it

Jimmy Conway

Water...

Dtp1979

Turn off all working rads and see if the rad heats. If not, instead of tapping the pin, gently pull it a few mm out

Jimmy Conway

Cheers, I'll give it a go, fingers crossed. If that doesn't solve the problem any ideas what it could be?

Dtp1979

Jimmy Conway wrote: »

Cheers, I'll give it a go, fingers crossed. If that doesn't solve the problem any ideas what it could be?

Sludge build up in the valve.

jimf

remove the vent screw and have a poke around with a paperclip might be as dtp said have seen it to happen before a small drop of water would come out when opened could be a bit of schite in there