in this video we're going to fix this leaking radiator valve it's actually
leaking from the compression nut at the bottom there with this one you can
actually just pull the cap straight off some of them are held on using a small
screw I've actually put a bit of kitchen towel around there so that we could
actually see exactly where the water is coming from sometimes it leaks from the
packing gland nut there which in this case it isn't because the top piece of
kitchen roll is completely dry sometimes it can leak from that Union and it's
definitely not leaking from there but you can see from the tissue that it's
saturated we've definitely got a leak on this compression nut I have actually
tried to nip that up in the past a couple of days ago and it is still leaking so
this is a little bit difficult because we can't actually isolate the water
without draining it down fully but because this is a upstairs radiator
what I'm going to do is I'm going to let some water out of the radiator so that
there's no pressure in the system I'm then going to close the lock shield
valve there and then I'm going to undo the compression nut, I'm going to wrap some
PTFE tape around the olive and then I'm going to tighten the nut back up it is
risky doing this if specially if you doing it downstairs because it's quite a
lot of water in some central heating systems so I've ensured that the central
heating is switched off can now remove that because we know that it's
definitely leaking I'm now gonna place an old towel around there I'm just gonna
put a lot of blue roll at the back there I'm now going to take a radiator bleed key
because this radiator is on a pressurized system we're going to let out some of
the pressure via the bleed valve obviously if you've got a conventional
heating system it is pointless doing this because you'll be there all
day
so just drain some water out and as you can see that is absolutely filthy and I
think the next thing I need to do is get the system power flushed and get
some inhibitor put back in there because it definitely should not be that
colour so the water is pretty much stopped coming out of there we can now tighten
that bleed valve back up
can now replace the knob on there I'll just close that so what we've got
now is the water that's left in the system hopefully that won't be under a
lot of pressure now so can now remove the cap again and now need to hold the
lock shield valve so that we don't damage that and then we need to take and adjustable
spanner we just need to undo the compression nut just at the bottom there
so that's now loose
we should get a little bit of water coming out of here
as long as we don't move the pipe I shouldn't get too much in order to make
it easier to put the PTFE tape on, I'm just going to wrap some around a spool
from a sewing machine this makes it a lot easier to apply it in a confined
space obviously you can see it's a massive difference size between
the spool and the spool that the PTFE tape comes on
now ideally we want the PTFE tape between the olive and the actual fitting but
that is going to be very difficult to get it in there and what we don't want
to do is let a lot of water out of the system so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
take the PTFE tape I'm just gonna wrap that around the olive the best that I
can
I'm also gonna get it just on the bottom of the thread there
so I'm now gonna break that off and then I'm going to put the compression nut back up
there
and with a bit of luck when we tighten that up it should actually stop the leak so
again I'm gonna grab the lock shield valve I'm gonna take the adjustable I'm gonna
tighten the nut
now that is pretty tight so I'm now going to undo the lock shield valve
again what we can do is tie a piece of tissue around there and we'll
know immediately if it's leaking because the tissue will become saturated very
quickly so I've now topped the boiler back up and I've got the central heating back on
and the radiator is now getting nice and warm and as you can see from the blue
tissue the leak has actually been fixed what you don't want to do is
start moving the pipe or the radiator once you've undone the compression nut
at the bottom there or you could get very wet very quickly it's important to
note that as soon as you undo that nut you've got to be ready to screw it
back on quickly just in case the water does start coming out of the system this
can be a risky job to do and if you've never done anything like this before it
may be a good idea to get a plumber to do it for you either that or you can
actually drain down the system to fix a leak like this so I'd always recommend
trying this first you can wrap some PTFE tape around the olive if that doesn't
work you're gonna have to drain it down and then remove the pipe put the PTFE
tape around the olive around the top of the olive and then retighten the
compression nut as a precaution I'm going to leave that on there I'll just
keep an eye on that for the next couple of days to ensure that it's not leaking
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