I am new here, so bear with me! I just bought an old house with no heating, we ripped out the old immersion and installed a brand new system. We went with a reputable company and they were really helpful. The whole system cost £3900, which included the boiler, copper pipes, and 7 radiators and a towel rail. The boiler is a valliant ecotec pro which they said was a very fuel efficient boiler. The thing is, weve had teething problems from the start, and weve had a few engineers from the company to come and re-balance the radiators, and they say it gets up to temp and is OK and then leave. They told us that it could get up to 23 degrees, even though we wouldnt want it that warm, but we knew it would be good to have the capability to get that hot and turn it down. They said they factored in the room sizes etc and that the rads were more than big enough to heat the house. But it always seems like even though we have it set as target temperature 19 degrees, it has never reached that temperature, the highest it got up to was 18.5 when an engineer from the company spent 2 hours messing with it and turned it up full. It now has gone back to its old ways, and the max we can get it up to is 13 degrees. The problem aswell,is that the first gas bill we had was for £156, that was the accurate (not estimated) reading! and it was just for the month! there is only 2 of us that live in the 3 bed house, and we try not to use much gas. This month I decided to completely turn off the boiler and only put it on when neccessary, its been off for about a week and then on for about 4 hours every evening when we get in then off again at night and all day. But Ive checked the meter reading, and weve used 169 units from 3rd Jan till today which is just 13 days consumption, which again seems alot! I cant afford to have a big bill again! Also, weve just had brand new loft insulation fitted too. The house is brick (no cavity wall insulation) as it is an old house, and it has double glazing which isnt the best - all the windows are blown and condense up when your in the house! But still, all this was factored in when they sized up the radiators, personally I dont think they are big enough, maybe thats why it cant get up to heat? and maybe because when its on its working harder to trying and reach a target temp. it cant acheive its making the bills so high? I hope someone can give some advise! Ive just spent a fortune on getting the heating fitted, its freezing cold! and I cant afford to spend £160 a month just for the two of us to sit in a house thats max 13 degrees warm!
Brand new Heating System - Cannot get up to temperature!
- Thread starter Lydia84
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If the radiators are very hot to touch then i would double check that the rads are suitably sized for each room, taking things into consideration like insulation, size of room; type of wall/cavity and size/type of windows etc.
Do a search for radiator sizing (might be a link on fqa's at top of forum page) and see if he rads are actually big enough
also not a good idea to name and shame company until you can prove they're at fault, this can seriously affect their business
Do a search for radiator sizing (might be a link on fqa's at top of forum page) and see if he rads are actually big enough
also not a good idea to name and shame company until you can prove they're at fault, this can seriously affect their business
What circulating temperature do you set the boiler to? Wiggle the rad knob and see what the display shows.
If lower set it to 75 C.
You may need to set it to 80C when its freezing outside.
If you have a cavity wall then get it insulated that will save about 25% of your gas bill.
You dont say if the house is detached? I expect so.
Nor do I see £160 a month as unusual! For your house heated to 21 C for two hours in the morning and five hours in the evening it would usually be about £1500 per annum!
I suppose you also heat up unused bedrooms? Turn dow the TRVs to about "1" so the chill is taken off but they dont waste heat.
If lower set it to 75 C.
You may need to set it to 80C when its freezing outside.
If you have a cavity wall then get it insulated that will save about 25% of your gas bill.
You dont say if the house is detached? I expect so.
Nor do I see £160 a month as unusual! For your house heated to 21 C for two hours in the morning and five hours in the evening it would usually be about £1500 per annum!
I suppose you also heat up unused bedrooms? Turn dow the TRVs to about "1" so the chill is taken off but they dont waste heat.
Ive deleted the name of the company.
The thing is though, it never gets up to target temp. so 4 hours of heating at 12 maybe 13 degrees max on an evening? Is that normal to pay 160 quid? Theres only 2 people in the house, that seems alot to me, also all radiators in the spare bedrooms are on frost setting only, they are never on. So theres only the lounge, dining room,bedroom and a towel rail. Also, the main temp. on the boiler is 70 at the moment.
The thing is though, it never gets up to target temp. so 4 hours of heating at 12 maybe 13 degrees max on an evening? Is that normal to pay 160 quid? Theres only 2 people in the house, that seems alot to me, also all radiators in the spare bedrooms are on frost setting only, they are never on. So theres only the lounge, dining room,bedroom and a towel rail. Also, the main temp. on the boiler is 70 at the moment.
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Sorry forgot to mention, we dont have cavity walls, its a stone building, 1900's built, its a hairline detatched (looks like an end terrace but there is a gap of about 2 inches inbetween us and next door. The loft insualtion is brand new so thats fine, but in the long run we will have to change the windows. I am just paranoid thats its constantly working overdrive to try and reach a temp. it will never achieve because of the radiator sizes. I will calculate it when I get home from work. Thanks for your advise!
All the doors are on and ALWAYS closed in every room, I am trying to keep the heat in. Its not really very draughty, but the rooms are big with high ceilings! (I dont have the measurements because I am not at home right now) There might be heat escaping the windows, I know they need doing because of the condensation.
Turn the rads that are on * setting to 1 or 2 - as per Agile`s comment . You ( not you personally
) have to heat the whole of a house a certain amount - if you shut off rooms the heat will creep through from the heated rooms and then , in effect you are trying to heat a whole house with an inadequate number of rads . To get a fair idea of the system performance - leave all the doors open and set the trv`s to comfort level in the living areas and lower in the unused ones . It`s what we do in our 3 bed bungalow ( in the middle of nowhere )and it`s not what the previous owners did - they kept half the rooms shut , boarded up the fireplace in the living room etc. - and covered the place in mould from condensation . Went in our favour because loads of buyers were put off . Just the 2 of us live here .Imperial units - cubic feet - meter ? Also , keep the curtains drawn on the rooms that aren`t used . Just clear the outer condensation from the failed D/G units daily- they are still performing better than single glazed ones
That is likely your problem, you never have it on long enough to warm the fabric of the house up. If I leave my house unheated for several days, it takes two days of the heating being on from 6 am to 10 pm before we can achieve a temperature of 19 degrees in the hall, and the room thermostat starts shutting the system down, a few hours at night wouldn't do much.
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