New House, new central heating design faults ?

[MRDrip]

This is not my house or my problem, we just stayed there one cold weekend in December. So this is a brand new 300k terraced house, downstairs it's just one main room, kitchen ( Vaillant boiler ) diner and sitting room, with back door and patio door on the front used as a front door. From the lounge there is a door to the stairs and utility laundry room toilet all in one. The staircase has a double height window making the area very cold.
Upstairs there are two bedrooms and one family bathroom.
So downstairs has under floor heating with a room stat in the big room and kept us very warm. In the stairwell area there is another room stat and the programmer. This area was very cold with only a small amount of underfloor heating. On the landing there is a third room stat with the bedrooms and bathroom each having a rad with TRV.

The system had not been set up properly so upstairs reached about 16 deg at best. The stairs were colder and the main room easily reached a very warm temp. Simple fix but after that does anyone think this a case of Stat too far ?
Ideas please.

 

[bewsh]

if the property is over 150m2 then you do need to zone off areas to meet energy efficiency requirements under the building regulations, so usually you would have one upstairs and one downstairs, each operating a zone valve to allow the zone to heat up. I'm guessing you've tried turning the stats up to see if that works?

It could possibly be wired incorrectly so it turns the whole house off when one room stat reaches temperature.

 

[MRDrip]

if the property is over 150m2 then you do need to zone off areas -

It could possibly be wired incorrectly so it turns the whole house off when one room stat reaches temperature.

It's only 65m2.

The main room stat for the under floor heating was very slow to respond. The stat next to the programmer turned all the heating off from what the boiler did. All the pipes were nicely boxed in.

 

[dancinplumba]

what was boiler stat set at ?

 

[MRDrip]

what was boiler stat set at ?

Half way when we arrived but I wound it up to full slowly as time went on.

 

[SafeGasInstall]

I would not be surprised if its a new build !!!
Most new buildsi ha e seen has well to small rads fitted

 

[AWheating]

if the property is over 150m2 then you do need to zone off areas to meet energy efficiency requirements under the building regulations.

This is not correct, the 150m2 rule has changed (2010). the only thing 150m2 related to now is wether or not you have seperate time control of each zone or not. You must zone all heating systems on new build houses unless its a open plan bedsit type property.

 

[bewsh]

This is not correct, the 150m2 rule has changed (2010). the only thing 150m2 related to now is wether or not you have seperate time control of each zone or not. You must zone all heating systems on new build houses unless its a open plan bedsit type property.

Touche. So you just have to zone downstairs/upstairs is it? Does this rule also apply if you are installing a new system in an old property?

 

[chris watkins]

Touche. So you just have to zone downstairs/upstairs is it? Does this rule also apply if you are installing a new system in an old property?

Yes, 2x heating zones & 1x hot water unless it is an existing system & not therefore cost effective.

To OP, how long as the heating on for ? U/F systems are slow to respond (heat up) so need to be left on for 24h in cold weather. With a heat-up of only around 2 deg C per hour the system may never be getting up to temp if it is being turned off after 3-4 hours.

 

[MRDrip]

To OP, how long was the heating on for ? U/F systems are slow to respond (heat up) so need to be left on for 24h in cold weather. With a heat-up of only around 2 deg C per hour the system may never be getting up to temp if it is being turned off after 3-4 hours.

The owner had the heating running from the day before and when we arrived at 4pm on the Friday the downstairs heat really hit us as we entered. The big disappointment was the 15 deg ish in the stairs and upstairs. As this was the first winter let on the house my first thought was air in the three rads upstairs but they were clear. The downstairs toilet - laundry room did get warmer with the ufh.

 

[SafeGasInstall]

Not sure how its posible as hear always goes up ! And rads upstairs will be always hotter then downstairs ! So system needs balancing as it has been balanced in the way to send heat to downstairs and get naturally air circulations I hear upstairs !
Or rads are undersized

 

[chris watkins]

Not possible to take this one much further I feel without a look at what is on site. It is possible that the rads are off a separate zone with it only valve controlled by room stat, could also be that the rads have been piped from a manifold, how hot / warm were they to the touch ? if hot then it is a heatloss or rad size problem. If they were not hot then it is a supply problem (air,valves, controls).

 

[MRDrip]

The rads were lukewarm upstairs and by turning downstairs off by the main room stat it did get a little warmer after a couple of hours.

 

[stevetheplumber]

This is not correct, the 150m2 rule has changed (2010). the only thing 150m2 related to now is wether or not you have seperate time control of each zone or not. You must zone all heating systems on new build houses unless its a open plan bedsit type property.

can youpoint me in the direction of where this is stated i queried this on the job im working on as the whole house is one zone plus hot water will it make any difference if the houses are fed from communial boilers