Recent convert to Combi's

[rwd 3m]

Hi All,

My first visit here in quite a while and it's in part to share the news that I have finally gone over to the dark side!

Although my 30 year old Baxi back boiler was still going strong, I've finally succumbed to pressure from Mrs RWD and had a Combi installed.

The Heating Engineer that installed it (definately outside of my skill set!) has done a great job and went to the trouble to show me how to set the tinmes and temperatures on my new 'Hive' conntroller thingy. He also replaced all the radiator valves (12 rads) as they were pretty old and not in the best of order. And at a very competitive price too.

However, I do have a small issue that I'm hoping someone here can clear up for me. I have read through a couple of other threads here but don't see an answer.

Whilst he has replaced all the thermostatic valves (and the ones on the other end) he hasn't fitted one to the radiator in the sitting room, which is where the wall stat thingy sits. Now, he tells me that the system needs a 'runaround circuit' (just like I had with the back boiler) which I sort of understand, but now I find that the sitting room warms up nicely but does so way before the other rooms in the house do. The only way to get the other rooms to warm up is by turning up the 'target temperature' on the room controller.

The thermostatic valves in the other rooms are just dumb ones and are set to the 'III' (of I to V) position and when they do get the chance to heat the other rooms they are about bang on.

Something doesn't seem righ here, what am I missing?

Many thanks,

Richard.

 

[gmartine]

From cold close one of the lockshield valves on living room rad and open it 1/4 turn. Keep doing so by same amount until all your rads heat up at roughly the same rate.

 

[rwd 3m]

From cold close one of the lockshield valves on living room rad and open it 1/4 turn. Keep doing so by same amount until all your rads heat up at roughly the same rate.

I'll give that a try, but it does seem a little amateurish (no offence intended), is that really how these 'smart' systems are meant to be operated? Just seems a bit odd to me.

Your reply is much appreciated, thanks.

 

[Chuck]

I'll give that a try, but it does seem a little amateurish (no offence intended), is that really how these 'smart' systems are meant to be operated? Just seems a bit odd to me.

It's not 'amateurish', what you've had installed is correct and will work well once it's been 'balanced'. What the installer skipped was a final adjustment of the amount of heat being emitted by the radiator that influences sitting-room thermostat. This is necessary to give the rest of the house time to warm up before the sitting thermostat decides that it's warm enough and no more heat is required.

Follow @gmartine's advice above. Be patient as it may take a couple of tries to get this right. Think of the position of the lockshield valve as a clock face and, once you're getting close, make the final adjustments 'one hour' (i.e. 30° change in angular position) at a time.