Heating Issue

The Black Oil

Is there any way of determining why heating is more consistent in some rooms compared to others?

Our downstairs back room tends to be roasting, kitchen can be hot enough, the hall can be like walking into a wall of heat, but the front room can be like a fridge. It's almost never warm despite the radiator being warm (at 4 or 5), admittedly it does contain the fireplace so...and lighting the fire is about the only way of feeling comfortable in there or else electric heaters.

Upstairs tends to be OK, though the room above the front room can be similar ish.

We changed from oil to gas in Autumn 2008.

Outkast_IRE

it could be to do with the radiator sizes that were put in , the double panels and longer higher raditors give off way more heat, each room should be individually calculated . Whereas some fellas just guess by looking at the room .

mullingar

Are all the rads in the house roughly the same temperature?

Yes: The rad is too small for the room
No: Adjust the rad temperatures:-

Things to check:
Are the rads hot on top & bottom? if not they need to be bled
Is your chimney sucking out all the warm air? Block it temporarily and recheck

One thing that I found before was if you have thermostatic controls, they can fail and the rad will always be off

The Black Oil

Thanks for the ideas. Only one radiator was changed and it was in the bathroom because it was faulty or broken. The rest of the rads are years old. The one in the front room is a double panel and quite long. The installer did try and get the balance right a few times, but I think one room was always a bit off somewhere along the system.

Sometimes when we have the hot water and central heating on at the same time the HW seems to prevent the CH from kicking in...like now so I've turned off the water.

Outkast_IRE

The Black Oil wrote: »

Thanks for the ideas. Only one radiator was changed and it was in the bathroom because it was faulty or broken. The rest of the rads are years old. The one in the front room is a double panel and quite long. The installer did try and get the balance right a few times, but I think one room was always a bit off somewhere along the system.

Sometimes when we have the hot water and central heating on at the same time the HW seems to prevent the CH from kicking in...like now so I've turned off the water.

Do you have a balencing valve installed on the HW circuit you could use that to cut down the amount of heating thats being used to heat the cylinder ? Have you thermostatic rad valves installed? these might be usefull in your situation as they will shut off rads as needed and this will increase the amount pumped round to the areas that need it.

items

Just a few tips, if the rads in colder room / rooms are just as hot as the others, rads not big enough to heat room. If rad in colder room / rooms are not as hot as others, system has not been balanced properly, if system is balanced beyond balancing you'll have to improve circulation pump, bigger mtr head, prob change up to a 6 mtr head.

items

The Black Oil wrote: »

Thanks for the ideas. Only one radiator was changed and it was in the bathroom because it was faulty or broken. The rest of the rads are years old. The one in the front room is a double panel and quite long. The installer did try and get the balance right a few times, but I think one room was always a bit off somewhere along the system.

Sometimes when we have the hot water and central heating on at the same time the HW seems to prevent the CH from kicking in...like now so I've turned off the water.

Outkast has this one sussed. Lower heating return pipe going into side of cylinder should have a wheel head valve. Make sure that valve is open no more than two turns from closed. The valve shouldn't be open any more than two from closed, if its open more cylinder coil will take the circulation power away from rads (bigger pipe 3/4) maybe thats why your rads suffer when hot water is on, valve could be open to much. Also, if its open to much after closing you'll notice an improvment while heating hot water along with rads, both should work better.

The Black Oil

I'm afraid what you've asked re balancing valves, etc, is beyond my knowledge on a technical level, ahem. I'm not the one who was calling the shots when we were looking for a new system.

Coming back to what mullingar asked re heating top and bottom. In the room in question, the rad seems warm on the top, close to scorching whereas the bottom isn't quite like that, but is still fairly warm. Re bleeding, that's only to let air out, right? If water comes out straight away I presume that defeats the point or that it doesn't need bleeding? Tried that earlier and it just went straight into water mode.

I don't think we have thermostatic rad valves, no. We just have controls 0-5. They don't have any built-in automatic on/off feature, I don't think.

Appreciate the feedback.

items

The Black Oil wrote: »

I'm afraid what you've asked re balancing valves, etc, is beyond my knowledge on a technical level, ahem. I'm not the one who was calling the shots when we were looking for a new system.

Coming back to what mullingar asked re heating top and bottom. In the room in question, the rad seems warm on the top, close to scorching whereas the bottom isn't quite like that, but is still fairly warm. Re bleeding, that's only to let air out, right? If water comes out straight away I presume that defeats the point or that it doesn't need bleeding? Tried that earlier and it just went straight into water mode.

I don't think we have thermostatic rad valves, no. We just have controls 0-5. They don't have any built-in automatic on/off feature, I don't think.

Appreciate the feedback.

The balancing valve is very easy to find and set, gave a good description above. If the rad is hot @ top, its full, no venting required, if you've got a mix in temp, its circulation problems, old rads could have sludge build up.

The Black Oil

Sludge like internal gunk, something like that? I'll investigate what you said tomorrow - the cylinder thing is in the hot press. Well, I'll try to.

We had to have the actuator on the zone valve (?) replaced at the end of October (just pulled out the receipt to check the name), but I presume this may be unrelated. I've no idea if anything additional was done at the time, the receipt suggests no, but again I wasn't overseeing things.

items

The Black Oil wrote: »

Sludge like internal gunk, something like that? I'll investigate what you said tomorrow - the cylinder thing is in the hot press. Well, I'll try to.

We had to have the actuator on the zone valve (?) replaced at the end of October (just pulled out the receipt to check the name), but I presume this may be unrelated. I've no idea if anything additional was done at the time, the receipt suggests no, but again I wasn't overseeing things.

Have a look, any trouble take a few pictures post them here, plenty of folk will guide you. Sludge is built up internal corrosion, if your rads, boiler are old / were old you might have a build up of sludge in rads, happens a lot, when you've got mixed heat in rad, all signs point to sludge.

Actuator is an electrical control of motorized on / off valve, if its not fitted right, it could cause system trouble, all depends on where your motorized valve is or how many you have. Might be something there like a clue but best have a look for balancing valve first, rule out the obvious stuff, if still no improvement let us know.

The Black Oil

Will do.

Re the actuator, when your man (different crowd than the installer) came to fix it he said they'd had quite a bit of trouble with this particular part or brand and that they weren't the best. I can't remember the exact symptoms when it was failing, I vaguely remembering something like the boiler being on, but no whirr/boom sound out of it. Replacing the actuator thing sorted that. It's a blue and black box and has a manual switch just in case it goes FUBAR again, same as the old so like was replaced with like.

But yeah, I'll give what you suggested a shot anyway. Thanks.

The Black Oil

OK, here's a pic or two. Is the wheel head valve the red one near the cylinder and the cable running next to it? Does the system need to be off to turn it in the way you suggested earlier? The problem with the HW interfering with the CH isn't a constant thing, I think it only happens when the heats been on for a good portion of the day. Say last night, turned off heat for a while, watched a bit of TV...then turned on both HW and CH..a little while later no sign of life out of the rads so I turned off the HW to allow the rads heat up and put then HW on a while later. Seemed OK then.

Outkast_IRE

The Black Oil wrote: »

OK, here's a pic or two. Is the wheel head valve the red one near the cylinder and the cable running next to it? Does the system need to be off to turn it in the way you suggested earlier? The problem with the HW interfering with the CH isn't a constant thing, I think it only happens when the heats been on for a good portion of the day. Say last night, turned off heat for a while, watched a bit of TV...then turned on both HW and CH..a little while later no sign of life out of the rads so I turned off the HW to allow the rads heat up and put then HW on a while later. Seemed OK then.

The image labelled heat 1 is the red handled valve your looking for this controls the amount of heating water being allowed to pump through the coil it was explained above how much to leave this valve open . this will hopefully make a difference when both heating and hotwater on