Balancing Radiators - worth doing?

[paulfromswindon]

Hi,

Just a quick question. Is it worth balancing the radiators? How much difference does it make?

I know all my valves are fully open, so the system is not balanced. I do tend to find that the system is not very good once the weather gets really cold - would balancing the rads help this or make the system more efficient?

many thanks

Paul

 

[COG]

basic balanceing is so that all the rads have the same performance ie the furthest or hardest for the ch water to reach from the boiler should have its lockshield valve fully open so it has little resistance and the closest easiest rad should have its ls valve allmost shut so both rads will have equal resistance. You are trying to get 11 deg diff between the F &R from the boiler, if you have a rad say beside the boiler that gets red hot that willrase the return temp to the boiler and the boiler may shut down or reduce output, the boiler can be tricked into thinking the whole system is up to temp. ARE you sure your boiler output is ok a lot are range rated ie the plumber sets the output to the size of the sytstem (but usually leavs it on the factory setting of 50% )

 

[paulfromswindon]

Thanks for this Cog, it makes it a lot clearer to me.

Not really sure whether the output is OK. Any idea where the output setting would be? I appreciate it's different for different systems, but just wondered whether there tends to be a common place for it to be. Mine is a Glow-worm Fuelsaver Mk2 by the way. If not, I can always try and find some instructions on the net somewhere.

Thanks again..

Paul

 

[ChrisR]

You need to change gas pressure to alter the output (ie don't try!), which will probably be on max anyway. Get the boiler serviced and ask the engr to check for sludge in the system (rads cold at the bottom).

 

[paulfromswindon]

Thanks for the response, I definitely won't be dabbling with the gas bit!!

This has all been really helpful - thanks again chaps

Paul