Radiator Sludge

[JohnD]

That radiator clearly has poor circulation. It might not be caused by sludge. What happens if you turn off all the hot ones?

When you balance your radiators, almost all the adjustment is within the first turn from fully closed. Half a turn open is a good starting point.

If any of your radiators is wide open, it will steal flow from more distant ones.

 

[denso13]

View attachment 404614


Old rectangular style. Above is thermal photo I took last night. I’ll post normal pic when back at home.

Isolate is not meant in any detailed / technical sense, meant more that one radiator is with “fully open TRV” and the rest are off and checked to be so. I also tried turning lock shield on that specific radiator a few 1/2 turns, and it made no difference. I restored to original position afterwards.

Is that a connection to the top on the right hand side? If so, it looks like it could be the return, which is wrong.

 

[RainTown]

Is that a connection to the top on the right hand side? If so, it looks like it could be the return, which is wrong.

Lock shield is bottom left. TRV is top right. That’s been same for 20 years.

 

[RainTown]

That radiator clearly has poor circulation. It might not be caused by sludge. What happens if you turn off all the hot ones?

When you balance your radiators, almost all the adjustment is within the first turn from fully closed. Half a turn open is a good starting point.

If any of your radiators is wide open, it will steal flow from more distant ones.

That thermal foto was taken when TRV on one radiator, that one, was the only one open. Every other radiator was stone cold.

 

[denso13]

Lock shield is bottom left. TRV is top right.

Still looks wrong, which won't be helping things.

 

[RainTown]

Still looks wrong, which won't be helping things.

Can you be more specific on what you mean by “wrong”. All, or almost all, are connected the same way ?

 

[denso13]

Can you be more specific on what you mean by “wrong”.

The flow should be to the top, it doesn't look like that in your photo.

 

[RainTown]

That’s the actual radiator.

Most (4 in total) of the others are the same, lock shield bottom left , TRV top right.

One has it diagonally swapped, lock shield bottom right , TRV top left. That’s the one in kitchen, physically closes to boiler, also doesn’t work good at all

One has both at bottom, lock shield left, TRV right. That’s the radiator that works best.

This was all setup when central heating system was setup approx 20-25 years ago, which included installing all the piping to all the radiators.

Sorry if I appear slow/stupid, but I’m not understanding “looks wrong”? Over those 20-odd years lots of people would have looked at the system, annual services, little issues, ... Eg semi-recent Baxi boiler installation. They didn’t mention anything was wrong with how radiators were connected, in this sense ? As I wrote, they removed all the radiators and emptied them into a drain outside. And reconnected same way as before, at least I presume so.

 

[denso13]

Most (4 in total) of the others are the same, lock shield bottom left , TRV top right.

The valves don't matter. Again, it just looks like it is piped flow to the bottom, which might not rule out sludge, but it is still wrong.