My house is a long (100 feet long) and thin (18 feet wide) barn conversion. A elderly potterton oil fired boiler sits at one end and 24 trv controlled radiators hang off the send and return legs of the boiler. Each radiator has a 10mm feed and return, and the boiler send and return pipes start at 28mm then reduce to 22 then 15. A single grundfos pump sits adjacent to the boiler pumping the return path. It's got a header tank and overflow which are connected about 50' from the boiler. It's only heating and not hot water.
The problem is that the system has never worked properly and the radiators at the far end of the house get warm on the top and remain cold on the bottom so give off no discernible heat. I flushed the system last summer (not power flush, but ran c/h cleaning stuff through it) to little effect. The pump has got too much work to do and can't cope.
One idea I have is to fit a booster pump 50' from the boiler. But when I thought about this, there's then nothing to stop the water from circulating cold around the radiator loops (rather than return to the boiler) making the problem worse. In theory I could fit non return valves to each radiator loop but this would be a total pain.
Anyone got any experience of a problem like this? Any other ideas for solutions?
The problem is that the system has never worked properly and the radiators at the far end of the house get warm on the top and remain cold on the bottom so give off no discernible heat. I flushed the system last summer (not power flush, but ran c/h cleaning stuff through it) to little effect. The pump has got too much work to do and can't cope.
One idea I have is to fit a booster pump 50' from the boiler. But when I thought about this, there's then nothing to stop the water from circulating cold around the radiator loops (rather than return to the boiler) making the problem worse. In theory I could fit non return valves to each radiator loop but this would be a total pain.
Anyone got any experience of a problem like this? Any other ideas for solutions?
