Thermo Radiator Valves and savings???

Avoneer

Hi,

My friend is currently paying over £1000 a year to heat her home.

The house is very old and can't have cavity insulation.

She has 12 radiators, but no thermostatic valve thingies.

Does anyone know roughly how much she could save by having them fitted?

When her heating is currently on, all the radiators are on full wack and I think that with valves, she would be saving a lot.

She had been quoted £300 to have 12 valves fitted and needs to justify the costs.

Any thoughts anyone?

Thanks,

Pat.

kenshaz

Sounds reasonable,savings will be immediate,has she no thermostatic wall control ,if not the savings will be enormous during the Winter,I calculate that she will reduce her heating bill by half at least

ollyk

yes as kenshaz says check she has a fully working wall stat first and that it turns on / off at approx current room temp - you will hear it click when turning the dial and the boiler will fire up or shut down in response. If it is an old dial and doesn't click it could require replacing! also check that the stat is in the best position in the house - usually a ground floor hall I believe?
Then check that the timer is set properly and the boiler is on for reasonable periods throughout the day / night.
Those radiator thermostats are ok although they do not in any way maintain a nice constant temperature in the room.
Also bear in mind if the house insulation is real bad then the thermostatic valves will only get turned right up anyway rendering them rather useless!

Avoneer

Hi,

Just checked and she doesn not have a thermostat - the temperature is controlled only by the boiler.

Pat...

ollyk

geez well thats the problem then! surely she already has thermostatic valves fitted then? If not that house must be like an oven!
Get one fitted ASAP, she might complain the house temperature has dropped a little, being use to the tropics and all but she will soon adapt and should then feel inclined to take you out for a meal and drinks after she sees the savings!

Avoneer

So is fitting a hall thermostat probably the best and most cost effective way to go?

Are these easy to retro fit to combi boilers?

Cheers,

Pat...

Wickedkitten

Hmm, we have a combi boiler and we control the temperature of the water and the radiators on that .

Do you know what boiler she has?

ollyk

It doesn't matter - yes we also have a combi boiler AND thermostatic valves but no thermostat which means our boiler doesn't know how warm the house is!
Quite often the house is too warm with the boiler burning on a summers day - a thermostat would inhibit this, but the boiler doesn't know better until it has heated all the pipes, and mostly heated the radiators, before it gets the hotter returning water. (even if all thermostatic valves are 'off' due to heat, the boiler would have to heat the circulation pipes and one mandatory radiator without said valve before the return water heats up.) Anyway, then, depending of course on the boiler setting it might switch off for a while, until all this heat has disipaited into the house and the boiler kicks in again looking for hotter return water. Can you see what happens here?
If I owned this house the first thing I would do is stick a stat on the wall and I would at least feel more comfortable increasing the duration of the timer on the boiler, knowing my fuel bills wouldn't increase by x amount!
Oh, BTW my fuel bills are actually quite high, I suggest because of the above!

barginunter

Does your friend know that there are huge grants available in most areas towards cavity wall and loft insulation regardless of age or means?

the_gasman_2

First of all your system sounds as though it is an old dated gravity hot water with pumped heating. The room thermostat you refer to will just switch on/off the pump to bring on the heating. However even though the heatiing is on you will also have to have the hotwater on at the same time and thus burning extra fuel.
Ideally altering the system to fully pumped which gives you independant control over heating and hot water is the way forward, but may be expensive. As for savings with thermostatic radiator valves, it is difficult to estimate the savings due to every house being different. However, the first job i did when i moved in to my house was to fit these to all bedrooms. Remember though you must not fit TRV's to every radiator. 10% of rads must be on normal rad valves. (Usually hall and bathroom).
If you have many rooms which do not require lots of heat then the TRV's are going to help and will reduce fuel bills.

Please pm if you require anymore help

Richard

LittleJo

Hi,
A bit off thread but any idea of the cost to change from gravity hot water to fully pumped system?
Jo