Home DIY

I've had a Ryobi One+ hammer drill, circular saw, and hand vac for about 8 years now. They've done numerous jobs including a fair amount of wall drilling, timber-screw driving and MDF cutting (made some alcove cupboards). The hand vac gave up the ghost a month back after pretty much daily use, but the drill and saw are still going strong. I've also borrowed a One+ angle grinder from @mespilus (which I need to return sometime soon).

If I was a tradesman I might get something beefier, but for intermittent use, even fairly heavy-duty, they seem fine.

Yeah, its my go to... after here of course, always had decent luck.

@ffm
Wests Xmas tmw?

Sadly not, family duties call.

I've got one rad colder than the others.
It's the last on the circuit I think.
I've bled all the radiators.
I've checked the lock valve is open.
The rads downstairs are big vertical ones, I think they get filled before the cold one.
Before I take the thermovalve off (I don't want to) and check the pin isn't stuck:
Is it likely to be the rads downstairs stopping the heat?
Is the fact the valve arrows (see pic) are the wrong way around a critical issue?
The right hand side piping is hot.
The left cold
Top of the rad is warm but rest is cold.

It's the left hand valve isn't it?

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In the photo above there is a silver knurled ring below the numbers on the valve. Unscrew that. The plastic valve head will come off.
Once you have removed that you'll see a small pin sticking out the top of the valve. Give this a pull up with some grips. You should then be able to press it down a few mill using the flat side of your grips. It should spring back up. A little spray of wd40 may help.
Screw the plastic head back on and you are good to go.

Follow the instructions from sacredhart but there are times when the radiators in a system need to be 'balanced' or one will stay colder. I say this only because I've gone as far as changing the trv's for new ones only to find out that a radiator elsewhere in the house needed to be reduced for the whole system to heat up properly.

He already said the pipe on the right was hot.

I'm a bit confused about how balancing works. In his example, would the downstairs radiators subsequently run colder following the balancing? How does balancing work with TRV's, turn them to max to do it?

I have the same issue @Chalfie you're having, (eerily similar, I have vertical rad's downstairs too). Will be interested to hear how you get on.

Like I said, try your advice first because that's the best line of investigation. Just to be aware that there are times when the feed seems hot enough but doesn't actually work without reducing a rad somewhere else.

I'll see if I can get to the valve tonight.
I think its scary.

Balancing feels like one of those really faffy analogue problems: little bit here, little bit there's, oh too much etc and so on

I'm trying to replace a tap. On the existing water inlets, they don't finish with a screw thread to meet the new flexi pipe. Instead they have a solid plastic junction connector (yellow) meeting the copper pipes.
Anyone know (from that poor description) how these work. (am failing to upload pics for some reason).

Those first four lines are especially poetic.

It seems a bit of a dark art to me. I'd honestly have thought it was witchcraft until I had a plumber rebalance a tenancy I'd been struggling with. Some of the radiators will end up cooler (probably not by much). Maybe sacredhart can give you better analysis of the technique.

All I would say is the plumbers who did it for me did a 5 bed house in 20 minutes but it involved a fair bit of running about, although they did still make it look easy! Within a couple of months the tenants had messed it up again by adjusting their own rooms.

The valves were only fitted about 18 months ago, is the pin likely to be the problem?
(Either option isn't good here, either fixing the pin or running around like a knobber trying to balance them)

Accessing the pin is very much non-scary. Loosen the metal band under the plastic bit and the plastic bit just lifts off. Check pin goes up and down ok. Should be ok after 18 months but sometimes they just get sticky.
If it does, I'd turn the vertical radiators down a bit but still stay acceptably hot (you can usually hear the water flowing in - just listen to it like closing a tap a bit) and see if that helps.

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Depends on your relationship with a skilled plumber! I had mine look at it while he was doing a landlords gas safety certificate. If you can get the original plumber to sort it he might do it for his call out fee. Alternatively just keep fiddling with it until you get it right/understand the system.

Unidentifiable leak somewhere from the stop valve to the loo cistern entry so have replaced the whole run using pushfit & copper & a new stop valve. There's an offset between pipe & entry so had to make a run using elbow joints one of which is now dripping & I can't figure out why.

Is there owt obvious I should check or is it more likely a case that there's a high dodgy quality rate on the screwfix off the shelf elbow pushfit jobbies?

lengthways scratch in the pipe, bridging the seal of the pushfit connection.
Sharp end of copper pipe has damaged the seal when making the connection
Just unlucky and got a shit one

I think I've got it warm enough in the other rooms, cold in the hall. Is that right? I thought the hall needed to be warm but seeing as noone sits there I think that's mad.

Ok ta, will grab some spares tomorrow & re-check the pipe for sharps/scratches I check & deburr (?) after cutting though.

Maybe the best you can manage. It's usual to have upstairs being heated by some convection too so maybe dial down the top floor a tiny bit and see if the lower ones get a little warmer.

Trying to source a replacement ceramic valve like the attached but the only one I can find online was £70 which at that price would rather replace the tap unit. Anyone ideas on where to source? Tried screwfix, Amazon, Google....

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