Heating

cosmowillie53

The bad weather has reminded me that I need to get my home heating sorted out for the winter.
I have ten rads (5 doubles and 5 singles ) in a 20 year old two story house.
The rads and immersion all heat at the same time..( one on all on)
I have an indoor burner/boiler using kerosene which was cleaned/serviced last year. There is a small tank in the attic which is beside the main water tank.
Some of the rads don't heat up properly at all including two singles upstairs where only the top inch of the rad ever heats.
I also want to change the on/off rad valves to thermostats on all or at least some of the rads.

Q: What should I expect to pay for this work in Dublin and any other suggestion you may have would be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

BrokenArrows

cosmowillie53 wrote: »

The bad weather has reminded me that I need to get my home heating sorted out for the winter.
I have ten rads (5 doubles and 5 singles ) in a 20 year old two story house.
The rads and immersion all heat at the same time..( one on all on)
I have an indoor burner/boiler using kerosene which was cleaned/serviced last year. There is a small tank in the attic which is beside the main water tank.
Some of the rads don't heat up properly at all including two singles upstairs where only the top inch of the rad ever heats.
I also want to change the on/off rad valves to thermostats on all or at least some of the rads.

Q: What should I expect to pay for this work in Dublin and any other suggestion you may have would be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

The radiators that are hot at the top are possibly fully of dirt and need to be drained and cleaned. If you're going to do this then you should really do the whole system which ultimately is going to be expensive. DIY job would be to take each radiator off and just try and use a garden hose or power washer to clean them out.

If other radiators are cold at the tip and hot at the bottom then their is air in them and they need to be bled. Easy diy job.

Fitting TRV's should be reasonably easy for a plumber. but it will be time consuming and could be made difficult depending on how your radiator pipes are setup and if they can accommodate the TRV's without having to cut and add new copper.

Its a big job overall especially the cleaning part which is probably going to set you back over 500. I suggest you buy your own TRV's as these can be pretty cheap to very expensive depending on the type you get.

cosmowillie53

Thanks for the reply.
If the plumber just drained and flushed the two bad rads how do you think it would work out cost wise then. I drained the downstairs rads before myself so I know it could be a messy job if it went wrong which is why I wouldn't touch upstairs.
I'm trying to work out my budget before I call the plumber.
Thanks .

BrokenArrows

cosmowillie53 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply.
If the plumber just drained and flushed the two bad rads how do you think it would work out cost wise then. I drained the downstairs rads before myself so I know it could be a messy job if it went wrong which is why I wouldn't touch upstairs.
I'm trying to work out my budget before I call the plumber.
Thanks .

Depends on the scale of the problem. The whole system could have lots of sludge in it. Even if you clean two radiators it may just postpone the problem until the sludge settles again.

Just get a few plumbers out to quote for the work rather than guessing.

cosmowillie53

Ok will do...They might be easier to get during the summer.
Tks

Robbie.G

cosmowillie53 wrote: »

The bad weather has reminded me that I need to get my home heating sorted out for the winter.
I have ten rads (5 doubles and 5 singles ) in a 20 year old two story house.
The rads and immersion all heat at the same time..( one on all on)
I have an indoor burner/boiler using kerosene which was cleaned/serviced last year. There is a small tank in the attic which is beside the main water tank.
Some of the rads don't heat up properly at all including two singles upstairs where only the top inch of the rad ever heats.
I also want to change the on/off rad valves to thermostats on all or at least some of the rads.

Q: What should I expect to pay for this work in Dublin and any other suggestion you may have would be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

The problems you mention would suggest a build up of sludge
The best option is to power flush the rads this. An be done without removing them it involves adding a chemical cleaner to the heating and basically washing it around with a large pump
It's the best thing to solve your problem
Expect to pay between €400-500 for this alone
To chafe the rads valves to trvs about €400 for that
If you wanted to zone it with a 2 channel timer to heat rads and water independently that could cost in the region if €600
There is a grant available for this works
For €600

cosmowillie53

Thanks for that info.
That's a pretty good grant.
I will look into that on Monday.