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How could I improve my dry lining/heating system etc?
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24-10-2012 12:20pm#1
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Yeah I've been reading up on this since I first posted. I have read your explanation and also that when one installs a rad on an opposite wall, that the colder air near the window will travel across the room to the rad to be heated up and this process makes the room feel colder for anyone sitting in the draught zone , even though the average temp is the same.Outkast_IRE wrote: »The rads under the windows are actually the best location , the ideal situation is not to have curtains hanging over the rad.
Its the best location because the warm air which rises off the top of the rad actually creates a bit of a barrier to the cold air surrounding the window.
I have also read that this reasoning went out with the advent of modern double glazing, where this effect is much less noticeable, if at all. I'd probably still go with leaving the 2 rads in question under the windows as, the rest can't go under windows for various reasons anyway.
Hmmm, from reading the manufacturers info it seems easier to me to commission and troubleshoot a well installed, fully zoned system tbh.Outkast_IRE wrote: »For a standard house, especially one your renting i would stick with the TRVS on the rads, as long as they are used correctly the tenants will be happy with them.
Also its a lot quicker to replace a trv than it is to troubleshoot a system with loads of zones and thermostats.
By well installed I mean with flow meters and thermometers on the manifold. With flow meters at the manifold you can immediately see the situation wrt flow to and from the rad (only one rad per outlet/inlet pair). With TRVs it means you have the lockshield on the rad AFAIK, whereas with a fully zoned system with solenoids/mvs on the manifold, there is nothing at the rad end except the pex pipe, all your balancing is done at one central location at the manifold and from what I understand, room thermostats are more reliable than TRVs anyway as they can be bought in a purely electronic form, whereas a TRV contains a mechanical element.
A failed solenoid will manifest itself more clearly I'd have thought (I used to work with solenoids in a previous life and they always failed open or closed, very rarely half way). It should be easy to spot/test a suspect solenoid whereas TRVs are a bit harder to test.
To be honest I'm thinking more long term here. Energy is just getting more expensive and in the future (next 20 years) I feel energy efficient houses with accurate controls will command better rents from more energy aware tenants. Indeed, I reckon houses without such features will be hard to rent. The other distinct advantage with a fully zoned system is with a house share...the 3 renters can set their own heat to come on when they want in their room (so no heating a room at night for a guy that works night shifts!) and the common areas can be agreed together and the sitting room can be programmed not to come on at all in the mornings if nobody needs to go in there, for example, all saving lots of energy (assuming I properly insulate the internal walls and floors to keep heat from "leaking" from one zone to another).
There is also the possibility that we will move back into the house ourselves some day
Appreciate your thoughts however and I think you're correct in 2012 as most/all rented properties would never have heard of fully zoned heating like this and would be completely reliant on TRVs.0 -
It really boils down to costs...............Yeah I've been reading up on this since I first posted. I have read your explanation and also that when one installs a rad on an opposite wall, that the colder air near the window will travel across the room to the rad to be heated up and this process makes the room feel colder for anyone sitting in the draught zone , even though the average temp is the same.
I have also read that this reasoning went out with the advent of modern double glazing, where this effect is much less noticeable, if at all. I'd probably still go with leaving the 2 rads in question under the windows as, the rest can't go under windows for various reasons anyway.
Hmmm, from reading the manufacturers info it seems easier to me to commission and troubleshoot a well installed, fully zoned system tbh.
By well installed I mean with flow meters and thermometers on the manifold. With flow meters at the manifold you can immediately see the situation wrt flow to and from the rad (only one rad per outlet/inlet pair). With TRVs it means you have the lockshield on the rad AFAIK, whereas with a fully zoned system with solenoids/mvs on the manifold, there is nothing at the rad end except the pex pipe, all your balancing is done at one central location at the manifold and from what I understand, room thermostats are more reliable than TRVs anyway as they can be bought in a purely electronic form, whereas a TRV contains a mechanical element.
A failed solenoid will manifest itself more clearly I'd have thought (I used to work with solenoids in a previous life and they always failed open or closed, very rarely half way). It should be easy to spot/test a suspect solenoid whereas TRVs are a bit harder to test.
To be honest I'm thinking more long term here. Energy is just getting more expensive and in the future (next 20 years) I feel energy efficient houses with accurate controls will command better rents from more energy aware tenants. Indeed, I reckon houses without such features will be hard to rent. The other distinct advantage with a fully zoned system is with a house share...the 3 renters can set their own heat to come on when they want in their room (so no heating a room at night for a guy that works night shifts!) and the common areas can be agreed together and the sitting room can be programmed not to come on at all in the mornings if nobody needs to go in there, for example, all saving lots of energy (assuming I properly insulate the internal walls and floors to keep heat from "leaking" from one zone to another).
There is also the possibility that we will move back into the house ourselves some day
Appreciate your thoughts however and I think you're correct in 2012 as most/all rented properties would never have heard of fully zoned heating like this and would be completely reliant on TRVs.
I have installed fully zoned systems, with a manifold and flowmeters to each zone. And i can guarentee you this,
1.unless you pay good money the flowmeters and manifolds are only ok quality. The flowmeters have a tendancy to stop working after a period of time etc.
2. You will still have valves at the rads in individual rooms, you can make them both lockshield if thats your wish , but you need them to isolate the rad.
3. Room stats arent as reliable as many think, actually a lot of peoples stats are out by a good few degrees. In industrial applications they pay up to and over €100 for thermostats with 1 degree accuracy, these need to be calibrated yearly to keep that accuracy.
4. What your talking about in an average 3 bedroom house is complete overkill , there is no reason with a rad why you would need a motorised valve for each room, and no reason why you would need to know flowrates to each rad.
5. Ask any plumber about call outs and heating system problems often motorised valves are the culprit and you want to add more to your system.
Therefor increased likelyhood of maintance cost/time
6. Rad under the window is still the best location, a window in pretty much every single situation will be the greatest source of heat loss in a room be than double, triple or quadruple glazed, they will always be the greatest source of heat loss, locating the rad there is always the best option.
My own background is a fully qualified plumber, with additional certs in solar hot water, Passiv haus systems, and currently doing a building services degree which is heavily leaning towards Building energy systems.
And i tell you this, in a system with radiators in an average house the best control is TRVs on most rads, 2 or 3 zones. A Good Boiler if gas Viessmann or similar, and a good installer.
Put all the money you save on controls etc into retrofitting better insualtion and even possibly airtightness and then consider mhrv.
In terms of bang for buck insulation is where its at , the best policy is not to lose the energy from the home in the first place.
Also another note as a rental property i will relay a situation i came across last year in a house which had zone controls in each bedroom.
1 tenant was from south africa, moving to a colder climate meant he was obviously going to feel the cold a bit more, he had his own thermostat in his room. He kept his rad on 24/7 during the winter and only wore a shorts and t-shirt in the house all winter.
As you can imagine when the gas bills rolled in and it was a multiple of the usual amount the other tenants went ape**** they had no idea the south african had his thermostat turned all the way up . The south african thought the bill as usual would be split evenly amongst all.:)
As you can imagine huge arguments, plumber called in to check system, why was it costing so much etc etc.
Not the way to go in a rental situation is all im getting at.0 -
Yeah, that's a fair point right there. Hadn't really considered that some idiot would abuse it in that scenario.Outkast_IRE wrote: »As you can imagine when the gas bills rolled in and it was a multiple of the usual amount the other tenants went ape**** they had no idea the south african had his thermostat turned all the way up . The south african thought the bill as usual would be split evenly amongst all.:)
As you can imagine huge arguments, plumber called in to check system, why was it costing so much etc etc.
Not the way to go in a rental situation is all im getting at.
As I mentioned before though, there's a chance we'll be moving back into that house ourselves some day, so I'd like to fit something future proofed. I suppose we could go with a manifold and trvs and change out later, as TRVs aren't that expensive in the scheme of things.
Why do I need a lockshield on the rad if I have them on the manifold though? (seeing as one inlet/outlet pair serves 1 rad, surely if I shut off at the manifold I will have isolated the rad (and the flow and return to it) that way?)
As for insulation, yes, goes without saying that any improvements to the property will be centered around upping that to the max.
Edit:
What I can't quite get my head around with TRVs and 2 zones is...where to put the room thermostats for the zones? We always had problems with the room thermostat for a zone reaching temp well before the TRVs, where best to position room stats to ensure that the room stat only shuts the zone off after all trvs have had a chance to reach temp?
In a dormer with landing, 1 bed and bath upstairs and hall, 2 beds, 1 lounge and 1 kitchen cum dining room downstairs...where would you split the zones (which rooms, I was thinking that the bedrooms should be logically on their own zone and the general living areas on their zone. Where would you put the room stats for (say) 2 zones in such a property?
(It was initially this confusion that led me to the idea of "simply" zoning each rad with a room thermostat and having no "general" room thermostat to interlock the boiler.)
Really appreciate your thoughts
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You need a valve on the rads becuase as with any heat exchanger it should be able to be isolated from the rest of the system. Its the usual way its done , you can get small neat little ones in chrome where the valve is hidden like the return one of these http://www.plumbnation.co.uk/site/danfoss-randall-ras-c2-thermostatic-radiator-valves/# .Yeah, that's a fair point right there. Hadn't really considered that some idiot would abuse it in that scenario.
As I mentioned before though, there's a chance we'll be moving back into that house ourselves some day, so I'd like to fit something future proofed. I suppose we could go with a manifold and trvs and change out later, as TRVs aren't that expensive in the scheme of things.
Why do I need a lockshield on the rad if I have them on the manifold though? (seeing as one inlet/outlet pair serves 1 rad, surely if I shut off at the manifold I will have isolated the rad (and the flow and return to it) that way?)
As for insulation, yes, goes without saying that any improvements to the property will be centered around upping that to the max.
Edit:
What I can't quite get my head around with TRVs and 2 zones is...where to put the room thermostats for the zones? We always had problems with the room thermostat for a zone reaching temp well before the TRVs, where best to position room stats to ensure that the room stat only shuts the zone off after all trvs have had a chance to reach temp?
In a dormer with landing, 1 bed and bath upstairs and hall, 2 beds, 1 lounge and 1 kitchen cum dining room downstairs...where would you split the zones (which rooms, I was thinking that the bedrooms should be logically on their own zone and the general living areas on their zone. Where would you put the room stats for (say) 2 zones in such a property?
(It was initially this confusion that led me to the idea of "simply" zoning each rad with a room thermostat and having no "general" room thermostat to interlock the boiler.)
Really appreciate your thoughts
I know what your saying that you could isolate it at manifold, but you still need a neat way to connect the pipework to rads and this would be the neatest way imo. Whilst also allowing isolation if the rad ever developed a pinhole leak etc.
Room thermostat for the downstairs zone is usually one of two places , living room or hall. Both have inherent problems for example.
I locate it in hall, unless you have a draught lobby every time the front door is opened a gush of cold air sets off the thermostat.
Living room . if you have a fire or stove in the same room it will bring the temp of the room up quickly.
Really what im saying is that its an individual design issue that must be made when you are sure about about layouts and usage of rooms etc.
The upstairs one in a rented property would prob be located in the hall, the idea being that its set to an decent temp and people use their own trvs in their rooms to fine tune their sleeping space.
If you were living there yourself you could of course locate a stat in the master bedroom etc.
Look its hard to give advice really as Rented property vs Your own home are two different usages entirely really.
Would something like this suit your usage, i have installed them before and they work well giving each room great individual control
http://www.solorad.ie/product/discreet-range/0 -
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