Cold Living Room

[roadster]

I live in a 2 up 2 down end terrace house. The heating is fine apart from the living room where we have to have some form of supplementary heating on cold nights. This rooms side wall is north facing. The walls are solid, that is no cavity, and consequently quite cold. If I set the stat in the dining room to 24 degrees the living room just about keeps up to temperature but the dining room is unbearably hot! All rads have thermostatic valves (wide open)

Any ideas on how to improve the situation?

Should I swap the single panel rad in that room for a double? If I set the thermostatic valve in the dining room a bit lower the whole house warms up to some degree but the boiler never cuts out on the room stat......

H

 

[JohnD]

Quick fix: Turn down the thermo valve in the dining room to a reasonable temperature. then turn down the room stat in the dining room.

Later, you may also want to turn down the lockshield valves at the other end of the dining room rad so it heats up slower. You don't really want both a room stat and a thermo valve in the same room. Balancing on lockshield valves takes longer because there is quite a bit of trial and serror over several days. You want to end up in a position where, even if you leave the thermo valve in the dining room at max, the room stat controls the temp and the other rooms are at a comfortable temp.

 

[roadster]

OK I'll give it a try. I somehow think that the rad in the living room is not up to the job though............having 2 external walls and the front door (which comes straight off the street) makes it a difficult room to heat.

Cheers

H

 

[ricarbo]

If your thermostatic valves are all wide open, it's hardly surprising. Turn down the lockshield, not the thermostatic valve in the dining room and any other room that overheats. It'll take several attempts over maybe a week to get it right. Then use the thermostatic valves as intended.eg if it's a danfoss 3 in the living room, 2 in the bedrroms and hall etc. Could be that your rads are not the right sizes if you can't get it right.

 

[slippyr4]

If I set the stat in the dining room

If I set the thermostatic valve in the dining room a bit lower the whole house warms up to some degree but the boiler never cuts out on the room stat......

You're not really meant to have a room stat and a TRV in the same room together. If you pretend for a moment that a TRV actually controls room temperature properly (which is a matter of no small amount of debate), then picture the following 2 scenarios:-

1. Room stat set at 22 degrees, TRV set to the equivalent of 20 degrees.

- the heating runs all the time, the radiator never warms the room enough to get the room stat to switch off because the TRV is throttling is back.

2. Room stat set at 20 degrees, TRV set at the equivalent of 22 degrees.

- the heating runs until the room has reached 20 degrees then turns off. Because the TRV is fairly wide open, this probably happens quite quickly, and the result is that the rest of the house is not up to temperature.


If you whack the TRV in the dining room onto max, but throttle the radiator back with it's lockshield valve and turn all the other TRV's down to reasonable levels in the rest of the house, then you are in a better position to get some control. Try setting the room stat at 22 degrees. What happens to the other rooms? can you get the lounge warm enough by twiddling it's TRV a little?

 

[roadster]

OK, now I understand the theory a little better I'll start playing with the settings and report back in a while.

Thanks for the help,

H

 

[roadster]

Over the (cold) weekend I have been doing as suggested with limited success. The locksheild valve in the dining room is now just barely cracked open and the rad is hot enough to keep the room up to temperature with the stat set at 22 or 23 , the difference in temperature of the flow and return pipes is quite marked...... the front room is still struggling to get up to temperature with that rad on full bore. The rest of the house is fine with the TRVs set at sensible levels.

One of the main problems with the front room is that the rad is on the internal side wall and I guess that the heat rises, crosses the room and is cooled by the external side wall (poorly insulated you may remember). I think I saw an article somewhere about poor siting of rads causing draughts and hence poor efficency. There is nowhere else to put it though.

Any ideas???

H