What do I need to do to get my radiators working properly?

matt100

matt100

matt100

Soldato
Joined
31 Jul 2004
Posts
13,762
Location
Surrey
We use our converted loft as an office which is obviously way too hot in summer, freezing in winter.

We've had a big radiator put in but it would appear I need to turn some radiators off downstairs to get any heat into the one up here... do I need them balancing or is it possible the combi is mostly just too gutless to power all the radiators? It's not a big house but the boiler is on the bottom floor, this is on the 2nd.

I've bled it all, seems fine, it also had a good clean out/service on account of breaking either last year or the one before.

I did watch some youtube vids on balancing and it's not for me, is that the sort of thing a heating engineer would have as a service? Any idea on cost if we think it's necessary?
 
Have you got the option of turning up the temp of the rads on the boiler, it may just need the boiler to give a bit more oomph through the system to get it up to temp. Would've thought whoever installed the RAd would have done this for you already though.
 
Last edited:
SoliD said:
Have you got the option of turning up the temp of the rads on the boiler, it may just need the boiler to give a bit more oomph through the system to get it up to temp. Would've thought whoever installed the RAd would have done this for you already though.
Click to expand...
I trust the guy who did it but we've had a lot of work done/new rads/bplumbing/new bathroom/new kitchen etc all done when we weren't using heating so I'm not all that surprised.
 
Balancing is where it's at I think. If other rads are getting hot and this one isn't, well, that means it's not getting enough hot water surely? Either that or it's so cold in the loft that it's sucking the heat right out.
 
I had a very similar issue, except with the converted garage. Tried balancing myself which was a tedious time consuming process and only managed to improve it from slightly-warm to mildly-warm. Didn't want to spend money on it so promptly gave up. Some time later I bought smart radiator valves (Tado) in the hope of saving money when the energy crisis kicked in. The more granular control of when rooms should be heated had the side-benefit of allowing my office radiator to get up to full temperature. Very happy with the result, albeit had to spend some money to get there.
 
BigChin1 said:
I had a very similar issue, except with the converted garage. Tried balancing myself which was a tedious time consuming process and only managed to improve it from slightly-warm to mildly-warm. Didn't want to spend money on it so promptly gave up. Some time later I bought smart radiator valves (Tado) in the hope of saving money when the energy crisis kicked in. The more granular control of when rooms should be heated had the side-benefit of allowing my office radiator to get up to full temperature. Very happy with the result, albeit had to spend some money to get there.
Click to expand...

TRVs do not, DO NOT, balance radiators
 
You should also consider the pressure of the system. For example the furthest away radiator in the upstairs zone of my system will not get warm if the pressure is less than 1bar and increasing it to 1.5bar gets some heat to it but 2bar is ideal.

If the pressure is low and keeps falling then it'll be time to check for leaks as well. Do you have a pressure gauge anywhere on the system, on the boiler for example?
 
matt100 said:
We use our converted loft as an office which is obviously way too hot in summer, freezing in winter.
Click to expand...

That's not normal surely? We have a loft conversion which functions as just another room in the house. It's no different to any other room in terms of temp. If anything slightly warmer being the top floor and near to more pipework/boiler.

Given you said you already bled it all and you describe the top one as getting hotter when you turn others off, it does sound like a flow restriction. I would agree that it would most likely be a balancing issue.
 
I can't believe balancing needs a professional, just turn them all off then go around in turn turning them on a small amount.
Obviously in rooms that are not used leave off, in rooms you need turn them on until you reach the minimum you need, if that doesn't work you're going to need a bigger boiler.
 
Well like I say I can make it all work it's just finnicky so I don't think I'm in new boiler territory..

And I freely admit this house is insulated like a pile of ****.. it's a 1910 semi with a suspended floor in the living room that you can actually see through... getting that insulated is a non starter allegedly, I've had a few people look and the lack of distance to the ground and the fact it's on stilts etc and the risk of damp means we've resorted to a rug.

The roof is also like swiss cheese which didn't come through on the survey but we're not planning to stay beyond the current mortgage fix so all of these things are sort of unchangeable.

Thankfully we're able to pay pretty much whatever heating bill so really my main concern is making the radiators work.

If we were staying it would be a new boiler, new roof, solar panels etc etc
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom