Switching on/off valve to other side of radiater?

martin57

Hi,

I have a radiator that I want to switch the screw on/off on right side of radiator to the other left side of radiator. The left side of radiator has a cone shaped plastic valve cover which is easy to take off.

As regards right side of the radiator that has on/off that I screw to turn on and off the radiator, how do I take that plastic screw fitting off without damaging anything? Do I just try and lift it up vertically or what?

It took about a min for the plumber to change the on/off to the other side of the rad upstairs but I forgot to ask him to do one downstairs?

Thanks

martin57

iveco_man

undo the screw in the centre of the valve head and just pull upwards place on other vavle with internal slot lined up and push downwards fix with screw.

martin57

iveco_man wrote: »

undo the screw in the centre of the valve head and just pull upwards place on other vavle with internal slot lined up and push downwards fix with screw.

Thanks very much for reply. I think I have the older type of plastic head cap on this radiator its called cosmos with just a arrow showing the directions to switch on/off rad but no screw in the middle. So I'm not sure how to take that one off. Myabe if I left it open at the right side and just bought a new head cap for left side would be ok. But still curious how I would get this old head cap off.

PS After doing a google it seems that its the right hand side of rad valve head cap I need to change to the left hand side of radiator, but as stated above I dont know how to remove the cap because of no screw in middle.

thanks
Martin57

diable

Why? as one controls the flow and the other the return if you swap them around you may have problems with balancing your rads.

keystone

The valves themselves either will be the same according to your description so far. You just swap the valve handle and the LSV cover over - thats why it only took the plumber 2 minutes.

However, did this plumber not explain to you (as diable has suggested) that you will (not may) be messing up the balance of your system doing this and advise you against it?

Cheers

martin57

Thanks for replies. No the plumber said nothing atall about balance or it affecting the rads, and everything seems to be working ok up to now.

Just wondering how it could affect the balance of the rads (sorry I know absolutely nothing abotu plumbing) as I would have thought that the water is going to flow the same direction as it is intended to anyways regardless of which side of the rad the open/close valve is on.

Or am I missing something here and the actual weight of the water within the rad with the force of gravity has a greater tendency to make it flow in one direction only?

PS just done a google again which came up with this, so although I don;t fully understand it, I realise its important.

http://www.diydata.com/projects/centralheating/balancing/radiator_balancing.php


Thanks for everybody's help.

Martin57

Aquatronixjenny

Radiators are balanced. The lockshield valve (which would be the one on the left) should be adjusted precisely to a certain point which is why it is just a smooth cone shape (so no one can mess around with it).

Imagine a row of 10 taps in a straight line all running off one pump. If you have all of the taps fully open then the one closest to the pump would be gushing out... getting less and less as you move down the line of taps until you get to the one furthest away from the pump which will just be a trickle. To get them all to have the same amount of water coming out you would need to close down the ones nearest the pump little by little, until all taps have the same flow of water coming out of them. This is called balancing. Water takes the easiest route and if you have the rad closest to the pump/boiler fully open on the lockshield the water will just go around there and won't go round the rest of the system.

Your C/H system is the same. The radiators closest to the boiler/pump will have the lockshield valve closed down quite a bit, and the ones furthest away will be open. All lockshields will be on either flow or all on return. You can't have some on the flow and others on return or it will just mess your balancing up and you will end up with some rads stone cold and others too hot.

If you change one, you need to change them all and then get your system balanced again.