Owning your own home

9 years ago I was talking about a rewire. Things move slowly in this place. Link contains picture of ours: https://www.lfgss.com/comments/12890236/

Haha makes me feel better. The couple over the road from me have a constant stream of tradesmen in and we've done fa despite being here 3 months longer.

My daughter's room in our new house is in the loft, and the radiator doesn't feel particularly hot up there, so I thought I'd bleed it.

Turning the key, I heard the air escape, but after a few seconds, nothing. No air and no water. I know the radiator has got water as the bottom half and the feeder pipes are hot.

So then I thought the heating water pressure might not be high enough to push the air out up there. The boiler says it's at 0.9bar, which is a little low. However! My question...

I'm used to boilers having a little water valve under them, which this one doesn't have... YouTube examples all do in the area I've circled.

Anyone got any suggestions how to increase the pressure in my boiler?

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Does the green thing press up like a button?

No, it's just part of the plastics for the boiler cover.
I've also got this plumbing monolith in a cupboard in the kitchen. I had been thinking that the boiler did the central heating, and this mega flo did the hot water, but maybe the mega flo does both? If I (somehow) pressurised the mega flo, would the pressure the boiler is reading increase as well?

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I would budget 20-30k for the roof to be redone

We had quotes around 20-25k for a full reroof for a 2 up 2 down victorian terrace. In the end we managed to get it done for 9k but they werent gold standard of professionalism or craftsmanship. They were recommended from family who had roof work done so we knew they were OK and had been out to resolve any snags. Roof is water tight which is what counts but finishing details like rendering of the parapet wall etc was done very slap dash.

Worth it for the 10k+ saving but I'd definitely want to budget for closer to 20k to be safe.

This was also 3 years ago so prices may have gone up.

isn't the circular white thing a pressure vessel? i think you can pump them up with a bicycle pump (but not a solution to this issue, it turns out....)

You need to add more water to the heating (radiator) loop to increase the loop pressure. There should be a top up valve somewhere. Quite where will depend on where the plumber installed it.

The “monolith” is the pressurised water tank, the boiler heats this in the same way it heats the radiators. There will also be a small electric immersion heater in there (probably what the two wires are going to under the grey cover).

Don’t mess with the small white pressure vessel, this is an expansion vessel, it doesn’t do anything with regard pressure in the radiator loop.

Don’t mess with the small white pressure vessel

apologies, i stand corrected!

There should be a top up valve somewhere

Thanks. The only pipe going into he boiler that was cold to touch while the heating is on (and not labelled 'gas') was the one on the far right - so it'd be a valve on that one presumably? There's no valve on it, so it must be somewhere else in the house - would it being near the monolith make sense?

Pipe entering the monolith tank bottom right (blue collar) is likely to be the cold water inlet to the tank, if you follow this back, this is connected to the main house water feed.

At some point from the water inlet pipe there should be a connection to fill / top-up the radiator loop, valve might be one of those without a handle and operated with a flat head screwdriver (connection might temporarily disconnected and connected via a flexible hose?).

Although it might near the tank, it doesn’t have to be, it can be anywhere convenient where the central heating loop and cold water inlet to the house are in close proximity - it is however normally reasonably easy to access, as radiator systems do need to be emptied/filled/topped-up every so often.

Maybe not because the hot tank is likely not on the same loop as there is a diverter valve somewhere which switches between the heating and hot water.
As above don’t mess with the expansion vessel, check when the mega flow was serviced as you may get all your questions answered with one plumber visit.
This is what I like about combi boilers as they are easy to work out what is what, Y and S systems are always like spaghetti.

Disclaimer: I am not a trained plumber and you must seek advice from a professional

Our old boiler came with a plastic key type thing that you had to insert and turn to open up the cold water valve to increase pressure. What brand is the boiler? Ours was a Valliant I think (previous house so can't check).

The skinny pipe will lead back to your cold water supply somewhere. It's entirely up to the imagination of the installer where that is.

Wrong

That's the central heating water return. Don't touch that.

Thanks all - really appreciate the help. We're currently getting quotes to replace it with a combi boiler instead.

What's really annoying is that I *think the boiler is a combi boiler - it's got outputs with pictures of radiators and taps, but only one is connected, so it could have been plumbed up more sensibly (or to my mid more sensibly).

I think I might get in touch with the previous owner or arrange a plumber visit.

Unless anyone reckons this is a candidate?! The pipe is cold...

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The manual says the inlet valve should be just to the left of that - through that hole in the metal that's currently empty :)

Sorry yes thanks.

Why would you get rid of it? Presume it’s a house with more than one bathroom/showers etc? That’s the only reason to have a system like that so the demand for hot water and heating can be met when people want a bath/shower at the same time.
We looked at an identical flat to ours with a system like that which took up all the 3 central storage cupboards and included a noisy shower pump which wasn’t needed as the mains pressure was more than enough and with just one bathroom, gave it a miss in the end as more expense to remove and claim the storage back.

We probably won't get rid of it, as it'll prove too expensive, but that tank is currently taking up a double size cupboard in the kitchen...

Similar situation to that flat you saw, we're redoing the kitchen and would prefer to use that cupboard space for something else. That said, moving it is going to cost thousands I imagine, and the value of that cupboard will never be worth that.

The place has two bathrooms, no floor heating and three inhabitants - I reckon a combi should be able to manage it, it seems (to my unprofessional eye) overspeced!

Thats not a combi it looks like a system boiler.

Nothing wrong with a pressurised hot water cylinder. Especially if you actually like washing your hands in hot water.

If it all works don’t just rip it out to fit an inferior system. Wait for it to croak then have at it.

Not that easy to tell from a picture but that valve is likely the mains cold water supply which then runs through a Pressure Relief Valve to the hot water tank and the cold water supply. This mechanism balances the output of the cold supply and hot supply so that thermostatic valves etc. work properly.

It is in practical position for a plumber if he needs to change the Pressure Relief Valve as they can fail shut and reduce the pressure to the whole hot water system but not the central heating loop. It is very unlikely it has any bearing on your radiator pressure.

As others have mentioned you need to find a point where the cold water supply is connected to the central heating loop. The pressure of that loop is the reading you are seeing on your boiler. Occasionally these are in really stupid locations and very rarely the flexible pipe is missing or disconnected (good practice is to disconnect it when not in use but 99% of systems I see are always connected).

It doesn't look like your boiler has an internal filling loop and I can't see anything in your pictures that looks like one either. Google flexible filling loop to see what they look like.

Your system boiler and Megaflo is probably the best solution for the number of bathrooms and occupants but it's the smallest size of system that would need one i.e. they are more useful in larger households where there can be multiple demands for hot water. Unless the space is worth a lot of money I would stick with this system.

Ok - thanks, I appreciate this (and the other) replies, and apologies for taking over this thread slightly, this will be my last question!

Is there any chance the attached photo is the flexible filling hose? The pipe on the left (red) is warm to the touch, the one on the right (blue) is cold. It's behind the mega flo, about 4-5 metres away from the boiler. The red pipe splits into the floor, and into one of the connections on the front of the mega flo, the blue pipe comes from the wall and splits into the jumble of pipes on the right of the mega flo.

We probably will stick with this setup, it's just initially disapointing that it's going to take up the only space in a new kitchen where we can have tall cabinets.

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