Feedback about balancing my radiators

[retired man]

This is my second post. It is an update on the first post which sought advice about whether an external expansion vessel would help 2 radsfurthest from the boiler which never got above lukewarm.

The advice I got was to balance my rads which has workedand my system now works much more effectively. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I am a layman with no technical expertise andjust wanted to report back on my experience which may help others. I followed the advice provided by croppie which was straightforward but did not exactly“fit” my system. My experience was as follows:

• I have 16 rads but a mix of 3 types of valve arrangement; 3 lockshield/thermostatic, 6 thermostatic/wheelhead and 7 wheelhead/wheelhead.
• I worked out the flow and return on each rad, I hope I am right in saying that return gets hot after the flow.
• After opening all the radiator valves up the boiler took 20 mins to fire up. I was just starting to get worried when it fired up.
• At point 6 I did not understand the reference to the DHW cylinder and the use of the throttle valve. This sounded too technical for me.
• At point 6 of the instructions all radiator valves were open but the two rads furthest from the boiler did not get hot at all but the others were all hot. After 2 hours I decided to move on to point 7.
• The first rad on my list is a ladder type towel rail with two wheelhead valves. Closing the return led to the valve leaking water badly and so I had to open it up again. I will need to get this valve replaced but should I replace it with a lockshield valve?
• The second rad had lockshield/thermostatic valves but opening the lockshield it up by a quarter turn left it cold. I had to open it up by 2 turns before it got hot.
• I did not find my new digital thermometer particularly helpful. Reading varied between 50 and 20 degrees on different rads. Using black tape on flow and return helped as did getting closer when doing the reading but I could not get a 12° C difference. The difference on my rads was less.
• Most rads with wheelhead valves on the return seemed to need to be opened up by about 1 to 2 turns and I then fine tuned them over a day or two to get the right level of heat to the rads furthest from the boiler.
• Some rads with wheelhead valves on both ends seem to have very little adjustment. They got very hot or became cold when I adjusted the return. I am wondering whether I should get thermostatic valves on those.
• In order to keep the house and all the rads at a reasonably warm I seem to need the thermostat at 22°C. Before balancing the rads the thermostat needed to be at 25°C or more and so I am hoping that the system is now working more efficiently.
• After adjusting all the rads I checked the boiler and the pressure seems lower than previously and is not so near the red. I will monitor it and then consider adding an external expansion vessel since the advice last time seemed to be that it is better to have one.

Apologies for a long post. Iwas grateful for the advice received on my first post and just wanted tofeedback my experience.

 

[PlumbBobBob]

retired man well done. as for the towel rad valve, just swap it like for like.

 

[doitmyself]

• hope I am right in saying that return gets hot after the flow. Yes
  

• At point 6 of the instructions all radiator valves were open but the two rads furthest from the boiler did not get hot at all but the others were all hot. That's because the system was not yet balanced!

• The first rad on my list is a ladder type towel rail with two wheelhead valves. Closing the return led to the valve leaking water badly and so I had to open it up again. I will need to get this valve replaced but should I replace it with a lockshield valve? The valves are the same, it's just the top which is different.

• The second rad had lockshield/thermostatic valves but opening the lockshield it up by a quarter turn left it cold. I had to open it up by 2 turns before it got hot. The instructions omitted to say that you should remove the TRV heads before balancing.

• I did not find my new digital thermometer particularly helpful. Reading varied between 50 and 20 degrees on different rads. Using black tape on flow and return helped as did getting closer when doing the reading but I could not get a 12° C difference. The difference on my rads was less. Using Black tape and getting very close is the only way to do it.

• Most rads with wheelhead valves on the return seemed to need to be opened up by about 1 to 2 turns and I then fine tuned them over a day or two to get the right level of heat to the rads furthest from the boiler. What was the maximum/minimum any valve was open when you had finished?

• Some rads with wheelhead valves on both ends seem to have very little adjustment. They got very hot or became cold when I adjusted the return. I am wondering whether I should get thermostatic valves on those. Did you open the flow valve fully before balancing?

• In order to keep the house and all the rads at a reasonably warm I seem to need the thermostat at 22°C. How warm the rads are isn't the important factor, it's how warm you are!!

 

[retired man]

Thank you to doitmyself for the helpful comments. The reply to your comments is as follows:

I opened the TRV valves fully but did not remove them.

The minimum any valve is open is half a turn and the max is fully open on the rads furthest from the boiler.

I did open the flow valves fully before balancing but I did not leave them fully open. Should I leave the flow valves fully open unless I want to turn the rad off?

Thank you again.

 

[stevetheplumber]

the lockshield is for balancing once set the lock sheild prevents it being altered the wheel head or trv is basicly the on off valve
if you ever need to remove a rad when you close the locksheild you should remember how far open it was

 

[doitmyself]

• I opened the TRV valves fully but did not remove them. Removing the head is advisable to prevent any possibility of the TRV operating while balancing

• The minimum any valve is open is half a turn and the max is fully open on the rads furthest from the boiler. As a general rule LS valves usually need to be open between ⅛ and ⅞ of a turn from closed. Due to their design a LS valve is usually fully open at 1½ turns from closed.

• I did open the flow valves fully before balancing but I did not leave them fully open. Should I leave the flow valves fully open unless I want to turn the rad off? Flow valves should be fully open while you are balancing. If you want to turn them off afterwards e.g because the room is not used, that's OK.

A good starting point for balancing is to set all LS valves to ⅓ turn open and adjust each one by a small amount as required - close if the differential is too small, open if too large. Each adjustment is minimal and the system needs to settle down after each change.