Once the heating season started in Harbin, something felt off with the underfloor heating at home. Some parts of the floor were warm, while other areas were noticeably cold to the touch.
My first call was to property management. Their technician said this wasn’t something they handled and told me to contact the district heating company instead, since floor heating issues were supposed to be diagnosed and repaired by them. I called the service line, scheduled a visit, and waited for their inspection.
The heating company technician came over and started with the most common explanation: air trapped in the floor heating pipes, which can disrupt water circulation. He opened the outlet side and let water run for a while. After some warm water came out, he declared that everything was fine. Then he measured the indoor temperature at 22°C, said that met the standard, and clearly had no interest in looking any further.
But that explanation didn’t sit right. Other apartments in the same complex, with the exact same layout, could get a bedroom up to 28°C. At that point, it was hard to accept that the difference could simply be blamed on "building airtightness." If you’re paying full heating fees, you shouldn’t have to sit in a cold room.
After asking around, I found that weak floor heating can have other causes too, mainly these:
- the manifold is damaged;
- too much buildup inside the heating pipes, restricting water flow.
Since the system hadn’t been cleaned in several years, I figured I might as well find someone to inspect it properly and clean the pipes while they were at it.
The first person I contacted was arranged through an individual middleman on Xianyu. He claimed there was no referral fee involved, but this technician turned out to be "impressive" in his own way. Before even coming to the apartment, he confidently said the manifold must be broken and needed to be replaced. According to him, he only used Rifeng brand parts, made of solid brass, with excellent quality. His quoted price was 180 RMB per loop. My system has four loops, so that meant 720 RMB for the manifold alone. I asked what floor heating cleaning would cost, and he said 300 RMB per session. If everything was done together, he said he could round it off to 1,000 RMB.
As soon as I hung up, the price already felt wrong. A quick search on Taobao confirmed it: a Rifeng four-loop manifold was selling for around 220 RMB as a full set. The markup was absurd. I told him not to come, then went to Taobao and asked another technician for a second opinion.
It really does pay to compare a few options, especially with repair work. The next technician quoted 230 RMB for cleaning the floor heating and agreed to come inspect the actual heating problem. This time, the real cause was found.
It turned out that the red ball shut-off valve in the picture below had failed. There was back pressure from the return pipe, which prevented the hot water entering the apartment from flowing out normally. That disrupted circulation in the floor heating system, which is why some areas stayed cold and the return side felt icy.
The technician quoted 120 RMB for this Rifeng shut-off valve. It was sold as a pair but separated for the repair. In the end, labor plus materials came to 318 RMB, which felt much more reasonable.
After the repair, I also had him clean the floor heating pipes. My father had said the water in the system probably wasn’t dirty, and I was curious to see whether there was actually any sludge or buildup inside. The heating company had insisted the pipeline itself was fine, although that may not be the most neutral judgment, since dirty incoming heating water would reflect on them.
Take a look:
[](https://images.yasking.org/moments/1765024487/03.mp4)
After everything was fixed, the first technician — the one who had tried to sell me a full manifold replacement at an inflated price — sent another message: if I thought it was too expensive, he said, then he could skip the manifold replacement and just clean the floor heating instead.
That was the moment it really felt like he thought I was an easy target.
What I took away from this
- If you can, use Taobao rather than relying on individual middlemen on Xianyu. Even when they say there’s no middleman fee, the people they connect you with may still be unreliable.
- Floor heating should be cleaned every few years. The incoming water can carry impurities, and if the pipes become seriously clogged, fixing it gets much more troublesome.
- Get multiple quotes before hiring a repair technician. Comparing prices can save you from being overcharged.
- Manifolds are not that easy to break. A unit that has only been in use for three to five years is usually fine. It’s older equipment — especially systems that have been running for more than ten years — that deserves closer attention.