Radiator Leak Repair / Radiator Installation
At Advanced Professional Plumbing & Heating Services – our registered plumbers can help you with all issues you have. If you ever experience any radiator problem you know who to call!
A leaking radiator should be remedied as soon as possible. If it doesn’t get repaired there could be extensive damage to carpets or floorboards.
Before replacing a valve, our radiator specialist normally check to see whether any leaking is occurring from a neighbouring source. They will then dray the area surrounding the valve carefully. Then press tissue paper around various points to ascertain the source of the leak. This is essential as water can run round and drip, making another area appear as the cause of the problem
Our radiator experts have been train to check how your radiator problems happened and how we can deal with the problems so that we can prevent these problems from happening again.
There are many reason that cause radiator leaking problems :
Leaking radiator from the spindle - until the plumbers get to you – you can try it yourself by trying to tighten the nut or undo the nut and wind PTFE tape down into the spindle.
Leaking radiator at the coupling to the pipe – if you want to try fixing this yourself temporarily until our approved plumber get to your property. You can do it by tightening the nut gently if that doesn’t help, then drain the radiator. Then undo the cap nut, take off the fitting and replace the olive. Even though you would like to try it yourself but we always recommended to have this repaired by a professional registered like plumbers from Advanced Professional Plumbing & Heating Services.
Leaking radiator caused by corrosion. If it’s the case then a new radiator needs to be installed. In an emergency a temporary repair can be made using a plastic resin filler. To help with any future corrosion problems, power flush is highly recommended to flush out the existing system with cleans water and adds a rust inhibitor to the water. Advanced Professional Plumbing and Heating Services can definitely do power flushing for you and we always use the best chemical in the market to give you peace of mind that you will get value for your money when getting us to power flush your system.
Problem with radiator valve – our recommended plumbers have high skill and experience to repair the valve that is broken. In order to repair this you can drain part or all of the system and unscrew the cap nuts connecting the valve to the water pipe, then we will remove the valve, valve adapter from the radiator by unscrewing it, clean the threads in the end of the radiator and replace with a new one. However, you’d better get this done professionally as if it’s not done properly it can give you more problems – with our Advanced Professional Plumbing & Heating Services plumbers – they can show you all the procedures and how to do this properly.
How to Bleed a Radiator
Most of you may try to bleed radiator yourself but do you know that most radiators have a bleed screw at the top of the radiator. Most of the time they are positioned at the ends of the radiator and sometimes they are on the back. Radiator bleed keys are normally made of soft metals such as Brass or alloy.
We can briefly tell you how to bleed radiator. When doing it you need to ensure that the central heating is switched off before bleeding or this can introduce even more Air into the system. It's a good idea NOT to bleed radiators with the central heating pump ON - if you do, there's always a risk that air might be drawn into the system making your problems worse. If you have a header tank ensure that the water supply is not isolated to this tank then Top up the boiler if necessary!
However, note that bleeding a sealed system will reduce the pressure which will need to be adjusted afterwards - this is normally done by turning on the mains cold water feed to the system as mentioned in step 6 below. Confirm before starting the bleeding process that you know how to re-pressurise the system - if in doubt, consult a heating engineer or proper registered plumbers like us – it’s best to call gas safe (corgi) registered plumbers like us - Advanced Professional Plumbing & Heating to take care of all this for you.
Know How Air Enters a Water Central Heating System
When new water is added to a central heating system a certain amount of air also enters the system. The action of the impeller of the pump will also 'create' a certain amount of air. As air will rise in water, it will collect at high points in the system, this is especially noticeable within radiators and in high level circulation pipework.
How to know if there is air in a system.The most common area of trapped air is in radiators. This is fairly easy to detect as the air will reduce the amount of heat radiated. With the central heating switched on, feel the top and then the bottom of the radiator - if the top is noticeably cooler than the bottom, there is a good likelihood that there is air in the radiator.
In very severe cases, the whole of the radiator may be filled with air so no difference in temperature will be discernible - if the complete radiator is 'cool' when the central heating is switched on, try bleeding the radiator to ensure that the problem is not just air in the system.
What type of radiators that gives you hassle – you can explain this to our friendly team when calling!
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Cast Iron Radiator
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Designer Radiator
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Electric Radiator
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Towel Rail
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Traditional Radiator
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Standard Radiator
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Covers
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Bench Radiator
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Radiator Installation / Radiator Fitters
When you want to have a new radiator fitted you need to look for a well-established company like us who can complete the work for you properly and professional. At Advanced Professional Plumbing & Heating Services we can sort this out for you anytime.
Our gas safe (corgi) installers can deal with both Radiator leak repair as well as fix radiator and our specialist do this all the times so we know all the techniques. If you have any leak and our corgi engineers will try to carry out all the work to repair the leak first then if it’s not repairable they will recommended you to have a new one installed.
We always experience customers who have all types of radiator like plastic radiator, cast iron radiator and for your information you need to remember our registered plumbers can repair any of them.
When repairing and installation radiator we would recommend customer to have radiator flush it’s normally known as “power flushing” which will help reduce the risk of radiator leaking issues because when you get power flushing done it will clean the whole system completely as the chemical we use is the best which is called “Kamco” that will get rid of all the sludge in the system that would normally ruins your system and shorten the system’s age .
In case of replacing a new radiator - after power flushing has been done we will be able to replace radiator or install radiator. Sometime the customer may have problem with radiator valve we will fix or radiator valve repair. We have had some customers trying to do the work themselves but dealing with central heating radiator installation can be complicated so it’s always recommended to get a professional plumbing and heating company like Advanced Professional Plumbing & Heating Services to look after all these for you.
Our corgi (gas safe) registered plumber, can deal with baxi megaflo and deal with gas boiler replacement and our good plumbers will deal with all types of central heating combi boilers or gas boiler servicing and all plumbing services from drain leak to toilet leak to radiator maintenance
How to Replace a Radiator
You need to first drain the old radiator and remove it from the wall. Then unscrew the two valve adaptors at the bottom of the radiator, using a radiator spanner of adjustable spanner. Use a bleed key to unscrew the bleed valve then remove the blanking plugs from the top of the radiator using a radiator spanner. Clean any corrosion from the threads of the adaptors and blanking plugs using wire wool.
Wind PTFE around the threads. Screw the plugs and adaptors into the new radiator and then screw the bleed valve into its blanking plug. Hang the new radiator on the wall brackets and connect the valves to the adaptors. Open the valves and then fill and bleed the radiator.
Radiator Installers
Our installer can find some good and cheap radiators with good quality or modern radiator that looks really nice to add value to your homes. When you want us to get new radiator for you - you can tell us what you need our gas installer can deal with this for you. Alternatively, you can just simply get the radiator yourself and we just come and fit it for you. When doing the install we would normally check radiator vent or air vent.
We don’t just do only domestic (residential) work but we also do commercial gas work as well. Changing radiator or fitting new commercial boilers can be a lot more complicated but that won’t be any problem to us because we have commercial heating installers who can deal with all issues..
Tips - How to Install a New Radiator
Drain your central heating system and remove the old brackets from the wall. Lay the radiator face down on the floor and slide one of its brackets onto the hangers welded to the back of the radiator. Measure the position of the brackets and transfer these measurements onto the wall. Remember to allow a clearance of 100-125mm below the radiator. Line up the new radiator brackets with the pencil marks on the wall and mark the fixing screw holes for them. Drill and plug the holes and the screw the brackets into place. Take up the floorboards below the radiator and sever the vertical portions of the feed and return pipes. Connect the valves to the bottom of the radiator and hang it on its brackets. Slip a new vertical pipe into each of the valves and connect these pipes to the original pipework under the floor. Tighten the nuts connecting the new pipes to the valves. Finally, refill the system with water checking all the new connections and joints for leaks.
