Hello all
i'm having an issue with one radiator downstairs in my lounge and I want to make sure my logic is correct.
A bit of background: we had some extension work done this year which involved moving the radiator in the lounge about a metre and reconnecting. When this was done, the plumber used flexible pipe (not copper) and looks to be about 10mm (slightly smaller diameter than the existing copper). The bolier finally gave up the ghost just before Winter and this was replaced with a new boiler and a sealed heating system. The system has now been powerflushed, but not yet rebalanced (I won't go through the story of why this wasn't done when the boiler was installed and the magnaclean fitted - it should have been as the system was full of sludge).
Anyway the heating engineer has always maintained that any problems with lounge radiator was down to the narrower diameter pipes. The situation yesterday was that the upstairs rads were all running hot (too hot in many cases), but the downstairs were not running as efficiently and in the case of the lounge, not getting hot at all. I closed down all rads one by one (just trvs not touching lockshields), forcing the heat through to the lounge (only one on the system with no trv and room thermostat in the lounge). The lounge radiator then became very hot. I then turned the rads back on in the order I turned them off (regulating trvs as appropriate). The lounge got cooler was still ok.
When the system came on this morning then the lounge rad did not heat up and is still cool now (3pm), although the valve at the "in pipe" is very hot.
I assumed this would be solved by balancing, but does this explain why the valve is hot, but rad still cool?
System clean (properly flushed) and no air in the system. Any input would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Simon
i'm having an issue with one radiator downstairs in my lounge and I want to make sure my logic is correct.
A bit of background: we had some extension work done this year which involved moving the radiator in the lounge about a metre and reconnecting. When this was done, the plumber used flexible pipe (not copper) and looks to be about 10mm (slightly smaller diameter than the existing copper). The bolier finally gave up the ghost just before Winter and this was replaced with a new boiler and a sealed heating system. The system has now been powerflushed, but not yet rebalanced (I won't go through the story of why this wasn't done when the boiler was installed and the magnaclean fitted - it should have been as the system was full of sludge).
Anyway the heating engineer has always maintained that any problems with lounge radiator was down to the narrower diameter pipes. The situation yesterday was that the upstairs rads were all running hot (too hot in many cases), but the downstairs were not running as efficiently and in the case of the lounge, not getting hot at all. I closed down all rads one by one (just trvs not touching lockshields), forcing the heat through to the lounge (only one on the system with no trv and room thermostat in the lounge). The lounge radiator then became very hot. I then turned the rads back on in the order I turned them off (regulating trvs as appropriate). The lounge got cooler was still ok.
When the system came on this morning then the lounge rad did not heat up and is still cool now (3pm), although the valve at the "in pipe" is very hot.
I assumed this would be solved by balancing, but does this explain why the valve is hot, but rad still cool?
System clean (properly flushed) and no air in the system. Any input would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Simon
