Heating engineer wanted - chippenham

Hi - We have a single non-working radiator.
Can you recommend anyone? WBer or not
We've tried everything a competant DIYer would do so it's now time to call in a professional

can recommend john williams heating

http://jwheating.co.uk/contact-us/

have you tried bleeding the top of the rad?

colin Thom is ok http://www.yell.com/biz/colin-thom-chippenham-7310110/

Speedy?

Remove the thermostat control bit. A touch of WD40 or similar. Tap the brass pin GENTLY with a hammer to release it.

if its the only rad that is not hot on your system, its probably thermostat or air lock. this can be sorted as above. feel the pipes comming to the thermostat and cut of valve both sides. if warm thats your problem.
how far away from the boiler is this rad? furthest away or off on a spur from main system suffer air locks.
other case is a sludge build up in bottom of rad, but then I would expect more rads to be the same. in this case its rad off.

nothing electrical or mechanical to break down ,
couple of things to consider.
flush the system every fewyears.
fit a magnaflux system unit,
fit a water softner.
fill with fernox.

the nature of the system makes rust and lime scale as would find in kettles and water and steel.
http://www.fernox.com/problem+solvin...heating+system

Thanks for the recommendations and tips. Have someone local coming tomorrow now, will let you know how we get on (would give out his name but I know he's retiring shortly).

It's not the furthest away, but we have a feeling this one might have been turned off for quite a few years as it's next to a desk and DH started working from home 2008.
It's been off the wall and been flushed with fresh water. I saw some black sludge come out initially but only a little bit.
We've had a water softener for quite a few years now so we don't suffer from scale.

Sounds like air lock to me.
I would be suprised if it was anything else

Its usually one or a mixture of three things, all of which have already been mentioned - sludge (rad off), air (bleed) or sticky thermostat (take control off and free the valve pin). I did however once have something different which foxed me for a while - some corrosion had built up just inside where the bleed valve sits - I could take the bleed valve out and nothing happened. Eventually I stuck some wire down the hole and that broke the "seal" and suddenly the air started to bleed out. Corrosion builds up more where there's air so rads that are susceptable to air (usually first one after the pump) will corrode more than the others. I always use Fernox and top up every few years to keep that at bay.

Looks like it is sludge in the pipe (which is mostly behind a stud wall). There is only a tiny trickle of water getting through.
Efforts to unblock it have so far failed. The guy that came today was really helpful and didn't charge but he didn't have any specialist equipment.

Try turning off all the other radiators and turning the pump onto full power - there's usually a control on the pump to turn to max.

Sounds like the system needs flushing. Don't ask the gas board they will charge you £800

Yes, we've tried the suggestion above, as well as trying to physically budge it and attaching a hosepipe (our water pressure isn't good).
We won't be having the whole house flushed - it's prohitively expensive for an isolated issue.
We will see if there is anyone who can treat the isolated issue e.g. with a pump.
I note the people on bumpers farm do powerflushing so I'll ask them if they can deal with an isloated issue or whether they will only do the whole house.

Merry Christmas everyone

Just thought I'd update this post in case it might be useful to someone else.

We were recommended a guy who has a hydraulic pump (his name is John Woodhouse).
The obstruction was freed and removed.
I asked him to put some fernox in whilst he was round.
So all fixed for £75.