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Hey guys

I'm trying to Balance my heating system to get the best out of it but looking for some advice.

I've gone round and opened the lockshield to give 12 degrees between flow and return pipes and seems plenty of heats coming off the rads

Then once it's all cooled down turned the heating back on and find some rads are taking a lot longer to heat up than others. So I close the lockshield quarter a turn which seems to help the rads not warming up.

The rads that was heating up first are hot to touch but not much heat coming off them.

Any advice would be appreciated as what ever i do can't seem to win lol
 
Croppies got a great link for balancing. I'll give him a nudge for you.
 
Somewhere anyway. Not tried attaching it from the tablet....

Hang one.
 
Give him time slacky. It's Tuesday night, bath night in the croppie house. He'll be back.
 
Sorry mate lol. Didn't know if tapatalk shown attachments or I had to view on the desktop site
 
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Just how many Kettles does it take to fill a tin bath (free standing rolled edge of course)?
 
That depends on the volume of displacement within the bath capacity. Anyone want to guess at croppies volume of displacement in the measurement of pints? lol
 
Sod off all of you. Bath night isn't until October. Tonight was a lodge night.

Slacky, bear with me cocker, I can't do it off the tablet but I'll set something up as soon as I wrestle the pc off the GSC when I get in on Wednesday.
 
Is checking which ones heat up first to show the order they go in from the boiler? Not long had the pipe work refitted so know the routes and which rads are closet. I'm going to redo the balancing tomorrow. Do you mean open the ones taking a while a little more? Is a quarter of a turn to much?
 
Will start from scratch see how I get on. I didn't do the order they heat up just the order they go in
 
Having another go and managed to get all rads up stairs to the right temp across flow and return but came down stairs and all 3 rads are cold
 
Try this method:

1. Remove all TRV heads and set any wheel valves to full open
2. Adjust all lockshield valves to 1/3 turn open
3. Get the system up to temperature (Set room stat high so the boiler does not modulate down.)
4. Measure the differential at boiler and across each rad.
5. Open the LS valves of rads with a relatively high differential by 1/12 turn or less.
6. Wait 5 - 10 minutes
7. Recheck all differentials
8. Repeat from 5 until all differentials are approximately the same.

Do not expect perfection.

It's more important to have a consistent differential than to have a specific temperature as this may not be achievable.

If the differential is less than 10C set the pump to a lower speed; if greater than 20C set to a higher speed.
 
Try this method:

1. Remove all TRV heads and set any wheel valves to full open
2. Adjust all lockshield valves to 1/3 turn open
3. Get the system up to temperature (Set room stat high so the boiler does not modulate down.)
4. Measure the differential at boiler and across each rad.
5. Open the LS valves of rads with a relatively high differential by 1/12 turn or less.
6. Wait 5 - 10 minutes
7. Recheck all differentials
8. Repeat from 5 until all differentials are approximately the same.

Do not expect perfection.

It's more important to have a consistent differential than to have a specific temperature as this may not be achievable.

If the differential is less than 10C set the pump to a lower speed; if greater than 20C set to a higher speed.

Tried that, turned all rads to 1/3 open and none of the down stairs rads got warm so turned the upstairs to 1/4 and down stairs to 1/2. All rads heated up. Temp difference was around 16-18 difference. Went round all rads to get roughly that now upstairs are heating up but down stairs taking a lot longer.

Close to giving up is it so much to ask to have a heating system that works lol
 
I suppose it makes a difference if the lock shield is on the flow or the return?
 
The there is a couple of lockshields in the flow. How much to close and open them by? Off the top of my head upstairs are around 1/4 open and downstairs are a full turn open
 
How much to close and open them by? Off the top of my head upstairs are around 1/4 open and downstairs are a full turn open
I did advise adjusting the LS valve by 1/12 turn or less. Large changes, which you seem to doing, just makes it more difficult to get the system balanced. Most LS valves are fully open by 1½ to 2 turns from closed.

If you have recorded the current differentials for each rad, please post the info.
 
I did advise adjusting the LS valve by 1/12 turn or less. Large changes, which you seem to doing, just makes it more difficult to get the system balanced. Most LS valves are fully open by 1½ to 2 turns from closed.

If you have recorded the current differentials for each rad, please post the info.

If one rad is hot and another is cold I try to just turn it by 1/4 down and the other 1/4 up see if that changes anything but doesn't seem to be doing much.

I'll take the readings when I get in later and post.

Thanks for the help
 
Here are the readings in order they warm up

Bathroom 71 degrees flow, 53 degrees return, 1/4 open and the lockshields on the flow

Side door 70 degrees flow 58 degrees return, open 1/4 turn and Ls on the flow

Bedroom 2 71 degrees flow 48 degrees return, 1/4 turn open

Bedroom 3 75 degrees flow 58 degrees Return 1/2 open

Bedroom 1 70 degrees flow 48 degrees return 1/4 open

Front door 71 degrees flow 61 degrees return, Ls on the flow and 1/2 open

Left the heating on for an hour or so before taking the temps, the living room and kitchen rads was cold

At the boiler The flow is 72 degrees and return is 59 degrees

The pumps on speed 3
 
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the living room and kitchen rads was cold
Thanks for the data.

Do you mean that the living and kitchen rads were literally cold, i.e. flow and return about 20C? If not what were the flow and return temps?

If the temperatures were so low, there is no flow through those rads. This could be caused by either an airlock in the pipes to the rads, or TRVs stuck shut, or by other rads robbing the problem rads of any flow.

Looking at the data:

Bedroom 3 is an anomaly with a flow temp of 75, which is higher than the flow at the boiler (72). All other rads are OK with a flow temp slightly below boiler temp. Are you sure about Bed 3 temps?

There is a large difference in the differentials ranging from 10C (Front Door) to 23C (Bed 2).
 
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Thanks for the reply

Yesterday to get heat to the down stairs rads I turned the bathroom and bedroom 3 trvs off. Turned them back on then started the heating strangely enough all rads are hot even the down stairs ones.

Just checked and the kitchen flow is 64 and return is 55. Living room is 64 flow and 44 Return.

Just checked bedroom 3 flow again it's now 70 and return is 56.
 
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