How important is radiator balancing?

[mrcallipers]

Hi all,

We have recently had a new boiler installed, and ended up plumping for one with weather compensation. I know that there are many opinions as to how good these systems are, but we've got it now (and have found it ok so far).

When it was installed I asked about radiator balancing, and got told it was a somewhat outdated concept as our system was driven by pumps in the basement. I had another plumber round today who was saying that it was absolutely essential.

Can anyone clear this up once and for all? Is radiator balancing important (in a weather compensated system or otherwise)?

Thanks in advance.

 

[HERTS P&D]

You need to have the radiators balance otherwise the water will take the easiest route. So causing some rads not to get hot.

Andy

 

[MickyP10]

Get them balanced!

 

[keego]

It really depends on the system, some will happily run with all the lock shields wide open others will be a bit temperamental & will require balancing.
Try running it for a while & if you have any rad's not reaching temp' then you'll know it needs tweaking a bit.

 

[ALEC1]

balancing a weather compensated system is critical, as you cannot rely on TRVs closing to balance for you..

you will be surprised that most lock shields have to be open only a fraction...

 

[David937]

Absolutely essential, not only so that all the radiators heat up evenly but also to get the correct differential across the flow and return.

got told it was a somewhat outdated concept as our system was driven by pumps in the basement

 

[Charnwood]

Turning the question round; how important is it that your heating system works properly?

 

[ambrosia]

balancing a heating system is essential, but thats not to say its unbalanced presently, have you noticed any problems on your heating

 

[mrcallipers]

Thanks everyone for this.

The problem we seem to have is that the ground floor is too cold, whilst the upstairs is like a furnace.

This has only really been a problem since it's got cooler - up till then it was all fine, even if the upstairs was modestly too hot. I've been running all the rads, all of which are fitted with TRVs, fully open (i.e. TRVs on max) on the assumption that if the rads were roughly right-sized for the rooms then we should have been running a constant temperature throughout. Sadly no such luck.

The radiators downstairs seem to get less hot than the ones upstairs. The towel rails are also on the heating circuit, and these really belt it out. I should also say that we have some unused fireplaces with open chimneys downstairs which aren't particularly effectively blocked, though I'm working on this. Even still, the rads seem different temperatures upstairs and down.

Does this sound like my system needs balancing so that I will get a constant temperature? Or should I ramp up the heat so it's warm enough downstairs and cut back in the rooms using the TRVs?

Many thanks in advance.