Radiator Valve help

meames_2

My radiators play up occasionally. Sometimes I have to turn them off to make the last one on the run heat up. After a couple of days of that tey work fine for weeks.

I had a cold water flush as recomended by the EOn central heating engineer (not a power flush as apparently that invalidates the central heating contract with them) The plumber siad it wasn't actually needed (waste of £70!). That they just occasinally needed re balancing.

I have tried this and its workin more by luck than judgement, only some of them have the thermostat valve on them. Some have just a small + or - sign that pops on or off, I am not even sure they rea on the right way.

1. How do I balance them correctly (which side of the radiator)
2. I noticed one of the valves dripping today. How can I stop this? I have turned the heating off (one that doesn't have a Thermostatic valve)

Any help appreciated

Thanks

Michelle

Paul_the_Painter

There are 2 valves on any radiator, one for you to control, and the other for "balancing" purposes. The one for you to use may be a TRV (Thermostatic radiator valve) or a standard valve. The other one is exactly the same as the standard one for you to use, but without a turnwheel on top.

OK now to balance the radiators you are looking for a consistant drop in temperature across all the radiators in the house, this ensures that all radiators put out heat, and not just the first few that "see" the hot water from the boiler first.

It seems that your system is badly balanced, and you are partially compensating for it by turning down an "early" radiator which allows later radiators to see more of the hot water. To confirm this switch off your heating, when rads are cold turn them all to max, then turn on the heating, if some rads never get hot, you have a problem that may be a poorly balanced system.

To check that each rad works, when rads are cool, turn off all rads, then turn them on, one at a time until hot, then turn off and move onto the next one. Hopefully every rad will get hot in turn, this will pretty much confirm that the system just needs rebalancing, and that everything else is OK.

Leaking valve is easy to fix, and probably best sorted by the guy you get in to do the rebalancing!