Balancing old central heating system

a4007035 · 8 Nov 2020

HI,

The central heating in our house is a hot water tank system. The radiators have lockshield valves and wheelhead valves.

We want it to be hotter downstairs than upstairs. At the minute all valves are open. The hot water tank is located upstairs and the upstairs radiators get really hot but the downstairs radiators get warmish (but not as hot as the upstairs ones).

Any ideas?

CBW · 8 Nov 2020

You should still be able to balance the system using the lockshield valves and wheel heads.

a4007035 · 8 Nov 2020

Yes but which ones do I turn? I tried turning the upstairs lockshields completely off but that messed up the whole system

CBW · 8 Nov 2020

Start by turning all of them off on lockshields, and start with rad furthest away from boiler, and work backwards towards the boiler.

Madrab · 9 Nov 2020

A very rough way to balance upstairs to downstairs.

Start from a cold system. Shut down all the rads via the lockshields. Open up the downstairs valves a full turn until they're nice and hot. Then move upstairs and open the lockshields just enough to start the HW flowing into the rad, shouldn't need much more than 1/2>3/4 of a turn. If the downstairs rads start to cool down then open their lockshields a little more.

The trick here is to achieve a higher HW flow from the boiler to the downstairs rads than the upstairs rads.

It sounds like the CH flow heads upstairs first then drops to the downstairs rads.

Bodd · 9 Nov 2020

a4007035 said:
Yes but which ones do I turn? I tried turning the upstairs lockshields completely off but that messed up the whole system

Could you have a one pipe system?

Bodd · 9 Nov 2020

a4007035 said:
HI,

The central heating in our house is a hot water tank system. The radiators have lockshield valves and wheelhead valves.

We want it to be hotter downstairs than upstairs. At the minute all valves are open. The hot water tank is located upstairs and the upstairs radiators get really hot but the downstairs radiators get warmish (but not as hot as the upstairs ones).

Any ideas?

Balancing may be the answer or you could need a powerflush.

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Balancing old central heating system

a4007035

CBW

a4007035

CBW

Madrab

Bodd

Bodd

DIYnot Local

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