Radiator Balancing?

[bloke2000]

I am not sure my central heating is working properly and would like some advise as I seem to get fobbed off by 'experts'.

The Problem I have is that the last radiator that water is delivered to rareley get more than luke warm at the bottom.

The Radiators are all less than 10 months old and have recently been remove to put heat relective foil behind them during this time they were flushed out.

The combi boiler seems to be burning 95% of the time the heating is on and but the thermostat on the unit is only set half way.

My boiler service was only 5 months ago.

it seems that the value at the other end to the thermostic value is on full on all radiators.

Does my system need balancing or maintainance.

Regards

 

[AL]

As a quick test you could try turning off a few of the other rads in the circuit and check that this rad you mentioned actually heats up ok. If it does then it is possible your system need balancing, or you have too many rads for your boiler?

If it doesn't heat up, you probably have a blockage / muck in the rad, open the valves fully on the duff rad and if that doesn't do it, i guess you could either take the rad off and flush it or add some chemicals to your system to clean it (this will probably require you to drain the system down at some point). Good Luck, let us know how you get on

AL

P.S. i am not an expert, simply your average DIY tinkerer!

 

[oilman]

Try this link or this one.

 

[ChrisR]

Boiler always on: is there a wall thermostat to turn the boiler off or just trv's? Boilerwill lower its flames but sit there "cycling" all day if there's no stat.

Blockage - as the rad had been off the "blockage" could just be air in the pipes. AL's answer should clear it into the rad. Also a possibility that a cheapo rad valve has stuck shut. TRV's DO shut of course so unllikely to be simply a balancing problem.

Why less than 10 moinths?
Was there a sludge problem? old boiler?/pump?

 

[bloke2000]

I don't think there is a blockage in the radiators as they were all removed and flushed out at the weekend. Is it possible there could be a blockage in the pipes that sit below the radiators?

The radiators are only 10 months old because we had new ones fitted because the old one were so old they didn't have fins, I was told this is not effeciant.

ChrisR,
no there is no Stat in the house just the TRV's. There is one of these on each radiator. However there are two dials on the boiler one for water and one for heating. (I am not sure where the heating one should be set to get best effectivness and economy)

It is quite a small 2 bed house with only 6 radiators, all of there are double radiators though.(a stone house)

I don't think there was a sludge problem. Boiler is about 1998 a 'Sime frendly' boiler. I was wondering of the pump could be knackered.

Al, I will try turning off radiators to see if that help

oilman, cheers for the links.


Thanks to all for help!!!!

 

[flashbang]

Bloke, A quick question, Was the heating working OK before you removed the radiators? Pointing to something you've done to upset things.
If it was, then I would say it must be air in the system, or a dodgy valve.
I know air can be a b*****d to get out sometimes..
good luck.
flashbang.

 

[bloke2000]

flashbang, unfortunatly the central heating has never really worked all that well, I have been removing cleaning and putting reflective foil behind radiators in order to try resolve the problem. Nothing seems to work.

 

[bloke2000]

deleted as was duplicate.

 

[bloke2000]

AL, I turned all radiators off but the one in the living room (the one that is cool at the bottom) this heated to the same level both top and bottom.

Is it possible my pump is no longer up to the job. Or would you even suggest I try speeding the pump up?

I am still toying with balanceing but think there is a problem elsewhere as it takes over 20mins for last radiator in the system to start getting warm.

 

[AL]

I guess the water is cooling down too much before it gets to the last rad .

Yep, you could try speeding the pump up if you can, also increase the stat on the boiler if this is possible (might be set too low?). If you've added more rads it takes more effort to circulate the water. Balancing may also help too.

 

[Registered Gas Man]

Yeah your right pal. Sounds like your system needs balancing!!!
Do you know how to proceed?? If so fine, if not post a reply and we will talk

 

[Registered Gas Man]

Sorry some Q's. How many rads did you have? How many have you added? Have you bleed them all? Have you bleed the pump?