R
RonG
Hi All, First post on the forum and hope its a good'n !
Story goes like this....
I salavaged a number of Ideal standard 4 column cast iron rads from a warehouse a few years ago, brought them home, removed all the old fittings, flushed em out with a hose in the back yard till water ran clear and then fitted them up with reducers to connect them to modern 15mm pipe and rad valves.
Type of rad can be seen here -
I removed the existing rads and fitted these up in their place with minimal alteration to the existing pipework.
I fitted the valves so that on one side of the rad the valve is on top and on the other side the valve is on the bottom.
I then fitted a Vaillent 832 Ecomax to drive the system.
Now that we have had a couple of colder than usual winters I am beggining to question the efficiency of the system.
If I touch the rads, the top is piping hot whilest the bottom is only lukewarm. As I slide my hand up the columns the rads only really get hot towards the top quarter and this is where I'm getting a bit lost as to why....
Every rad bar one upstairs and one downstairs has a TRV fitted. I may have gotten mixed up between flow and return and a few may well have the TRV fitted to the return as opposed to the flow.
I removed all TRV's but this made no difference.
With the TRV's removed I tried to balance the rad that heats up first by all but closing the LS valve and opening by 1/2 turn at a time but still the rad only gets lukewarm at the bottom.
Does anyone have any ideas on what I can try with minimal disruption in oder to dignose why these big rads are not fully heating up ?
Some are bedroom ones are 80 odd cm wide, hall and kitchen ones are 1.2 - 1.5m wide
Bathroom ones are 50cm wide.
The ones with no TRV seem to heat up all over and dont seem to have the same problems as the others. Having said this, with the TRV's removed from the others they are still not getting hot all over....
Many thanks in advance of any replies.
Ron.
Story goes like this....
I salavaged a number of Ideal standard 4 column cast iron rads from a warehouse a few years ago, brought them home, removed all the old fittings, flushed em out with a hose in the back yard till water ran clear and then fitted them up with reducers to connect them to modern 15mm pipe and rad valves.
Type of rad can be seen here -
I removed the existing rads and fitted these up in their place with minimal alteration to the existing pipework.
I fitted the valves so that on one side of the rad the valve is on top and on the other side the valve is on the bottom.
I then fitted a Vaillent 832 Ecomax to drive the system.
Now that we have had a couple of colder than usual winters I am beggining to question the efficiency of the system.
If I touch the rads, the top is piping hot whilest the bottom is only lukewarm. As I slide my hand up the columns the rads only really get hot towards the top quarter and this is where I'm getting a bit lost as to why....
Every rad bar one upstairs and one downstairs has a TRV fitted. I may have gotten mixed up between flow and return and a few may well have the TRV fitted to the return as opposed to the flow.
I removed all TRV's but this made no difference.
With the TRV's removed I tried to balance the rad that heats up first by all but closing the LS valve and opening by 1/2 turn at a time but still the rad only gets lukewarm at the bottom.
Does anyone have any ideas on what I can try with minimal disruption in oder to dignose why these big rads are not fully heating up ?
Some are bedroom ones are 80 odd cm wide, hall and kitchen ones are 1.2 - 1.5m wide
Bathroom ones are 50cm wide.
The ones with no TRV seem to heat up all over and dont seem to have the same problems as the others. Having said this, with the TRV's removed from the others they are still not getting hot all over....
Many thanks in advance of any replies.
Ron.