Hi all,
We are the new owners of a 30 year old house with a Rehau UFH system over 16 zones and 2 manifolds fed by a Vaillant ecoMAX boiler. There are no radiators.
The system isn't working well at all and I would be really grateful for any advice. Lots of zones just don't get warm, even though the thermostats and actuators for those zones are working correctly.
I've spoken to a few different underfloor heating specialists in my area and none of them are willing to take on the maintenance of an existing system, so I've taken it upon myself to try to work out what is needed to get it up to scratch and then arrange a plumber/electrician/gas safe engineer to do the work.
I believe the issues are:
1) The whole system is powered solely by the pump from the boiler - no separate pumps.
2) There are no blending valves on the manifolds.
3) There are no flow gauges for the manifolds and as far as I am aware no way to adjust the flow rate for each circuit.
My questions are:
1) Can I just add pumps and blending valves to the existing manifolds? I assume one I'd need one on each manifold?
2) As I'm not sure if it's possible to adjust the flow rate to each circuit with the existing manifolds, would that mean it would be necessary to replace the manifolds anyway?
3) Given that I don't have much info about the design of the existing system and circuit lengths, is there a recommended technique for working out flow rates?
4) Am I better off spending more time searching for someone willing to take this on?
One of the existing manifolds:
Thanks all.
Alex
We are the new owners of a 30 year old house with a Rehau UFH system over 16 zones and 2 manifolds fed by a Vaillant ecoMAX boiler. There are no radiators.
The system isn't working well at all and I would be really grateful for any advice. Lots of zones just don't get warm, even though the thermostats and actuators for those zones are working correctly.
I've spoken to a few different underfloor heating specialists in my area and none of them are willing to take on the maintenance of an existing system, so I've taken it upon myself to try to work out what is needed to get it up to scratch and then arrange a plumber/electrician/gas safe engineer to do the work.
I believe the issues are:
1) The whole system is powered solely by the pump from the boiler - no separate pumps.
2) There are no blending valves on the manifolds.
3) There are no flow gauges for the manifolds and as far as I am aware no way to adjust the flow rate for each circuit.
My questions are:
1) Can I just add pumps and blending valves to the existing manifolds? I assume one I'd need one on each manifold?
2) As I'm not sure if it's possible to adjust the flow rate to each circuit with the existing manifolds, would that mean it would be necessary to replace the manifolds anyway?
3) Given that I don't have much info about the design of the existing system and circuit lengths, is there a recommended technique for working out flow rates?
4) Am I better off spending more time searching for someone willing to take this on?
One of the existing manifolds:
Thanks all.
Alex