Too many rads for my boiler ?

keystone

DVardysShadow wrote: »

It's a team effort. If you feel I am cutting across you then sorry. But with a problem like this, the only person who is going to be master of it is the OP after he has fixed it. In the meantime, there is no one right approach and every good reason for as many ides as possible to go in the pot.

You are right of course. I apologise. Its just that when it wasn't at all clear if the circulator was operating properly at all it seemed just a bit counterproductive to tell him to put in on 2 and leave it there when that might not have been working.

Cheers

keystone

PrivateRyan wrote: »

Right. As you say, the pump does infact work on the other settings. Judging by the sounds (and the marks that i can just make out if i get close to it), my pumps was on the 3rd setting all along. I've tried the other settings briefly and the noise output (along with the fact that it says I and II against the other positions) makes me think that the original setting was the highest.

That says to me that its puffing a bit. It really shouldn't need to be on 3 at all times. But having established that theres no point in asking you to turn the pump up to see if that helps.

Is there any point in me listening to the pump when the boiler has switched off (which it does every so often when it's on) ... don't suppose this will tell me anything ?!?

No because it should (if the boiler has a run on circuit) continue to run after the boiler has shut down to dissipate the residual heat. Having said that if you put the tip of a screwdriver on the pump and the handle in your ear (no don't laugh - I'm serious ) you can hear a great deal of what is going on inside the pump and pipework.

Happy to receive any advice from here. I think we've concluded that it's not the PRV - the boiler is perhaps under powered but shouldn't result in the problem i'm having (too this extent anyway). The pump is on the highest setting and my pipes are perhaps a little too thin in places.

The pump on highest setting is possibly because thats as it was left in an attempt to get some circulation. But OK - pump is working, your plumber has cleared the blockage in the primary, TRV in conservatory is OK. Before we decide that the pipework needs upgrading theres something else to check. Are you absolutely sure there is no air in the additional leg(s) that you have added? Its very easy to get a residual pocket of air in an elbow joint which doesn't move but restricts the flow of water. Try shutting down all rads EXCEPT the conservatory one, pump running on 3. That should push any air through into the rad.

Regarding single pipe / 2 pipe configuration DVardys is correct its not a bad plan to determine exactly how you've piped the extra leg(s). This diagram shows the difference between single pipe and 2 pipe:



With single pipe the rads furthest away from the boiler are always coldest. The introduction of a two pipe configuration was to mitigate that effect.

If its two pipe are you sure that the flow and return for the conservatory rad aren't mixed up? Some TRVs only work one way and if the flow / return are switched then it could be the TRV stopping the flow.

Again, thanks for all the support.

Pleasure and sorry I got ratty with another poster earlier - just trying to eliminate possibilities one by one.

Cheers

Canucklehead

Hi,


SEDBUK will tell you your boiler is 65% efficient.


You might find the boiler, as a low water content one, will run better with the pump on it's 3rd speed as it will move the water though it faster.Especially if you have the boiler stat on max.

GSR.

PrivateRyan

Thanks. I'll try shutting them all down (later) except for the conservatory one. When you say "shut down", do you refer to the lockshields or simply the 'other' valve ?

PrivateRyan

Canucklehead wrote: »

Hi,


SEDBUK will tell you your boiler is 65% efficient.


You might find the boiler, as a low water content one, will run better with the pump on it's 3rd speed as it will move the water though it faster.Especially if you have the boiler stat on max.

GSR.

Pump is currently on the fastest setting. Are you proposing that i turn it down ?

Marsdendean

If the TRV's were the wrong way then most TRV's bang when placed the wrong way.

Agree with the above post, close all rads on the TRV's except the con one, then leave it for around 30 mins then open the other one by one

PrivateRyan

I've just done it - although to be fair, i've done this before (for best part of a day) and nothing happened. Still, i'll give anything a go.

I'm off to drown my sorroes in the pub, so it'll get a good few hours with the conservatory rad being the only one on.

PrivateRyan

Just come back. The rad in the conservatory is stone cold - that's after about 4 hours with that being the only rad with the valve open. It's colder now that it was before i turned the others off.

The famous 3 rads are close together. I've just opened up the 3 rads (not LSV) to see whether that brings the conservatory (3rd of the 3 rads) up to warm. If it does - does this mean i have some sort of single pipe thing going off ?

PrivateRyan

i'm too daft to be able to upload a layout of my house, despite spending 20 mins on designing one in MS Powerpoint.

Anyway - as above, come home and conservatory stone cold. I turned on the kitchen and downstairs bathroom and also - stone cold, nothing happening. I've just turned on one of the living room rads (not the lockshield, the other valve) and the kitchen one is now luke warm. I'm almost certain that if i turn a couple more rads on, the kitchen rad will get warmer and the downstairs bathroom will start to get luke warm too.

Nothing i seem to do (so far) gets the conservatory rad anything above luke warm.

Weird plumbing/piping ?!?!?!?! Surely i've got some sort of combo going off, with regard to single/double piping ?

keystone

Sorry been out and left you struggling for an hour. First question. The conservatory rad. You did have BOTH valves (TRV and lockshield) open I suppose. If one was closed you'd still get no circulation however long you tried it.

I guess its time to call it a day with actual adjustments. Make sure ALL your LSVs are open 1 - 1½ turns and open up all your flow valves to full. That should get some heat in the place overnight. I'll hang around for a while to make sure that works.

Meantime Re your Powerpoint. If you have it all on a single slide maximise it on the screen as far as possible then press Alt and Print Screen together. That will save a screen shot in your clipboard. Then open up a graphics package of some sort - even MS Paint will do - and paste your saved screen shot into it. Save it as a jpg image and then you can host that on imageshack or photobucket and post a link to it here. That may help.

Cheers