Radiators only get warm

InsideInsurance

We are renting a new build property for a few months and unfortunately the development company is the reluctant landlord after running into financial difficulties and so fairly poor at dealing with issues etc.

The radiators in the property never get very hot, the only two that get close to hot is the towel rails in the bathrooms. The rest are an even (from top to bottom) temperature just warm to hot at best.

The other seemingly odd thing was had the thermostat at 22C last night and going back to check on occasions it seemed to suggest the room temp was 16C but the radiators themselves would go through cycles of heating and cooling despite never getting the room to close to the temperature.

All the radiators have their individual temperature valves and these are set to max (other than the bathroom towel rails again as these, whilst still not very hot, make their rooms too hot and appear independent to if the CH is on or not)

It is a traditional boiler and storage tank set up, the secondary electric heating for the tank causes the electrics to instantly trip but I doubt thats relevant to the heating issue.

Any self help suggestions before starting another 2 month landlord debate?

ranaponting

Central heating system only half working?

societys_child

My first thought -
Check the boiler manual, there may be a water temperature thermostat that needs adjusting.

On mine it's hidden behind one of the control knobs and involves pressing a couple of buttons until the led flashes a set number of times - very odd.

ranaponting appears to be post building

bitemebankers

The first thing I'd check would be the boiler thermostat - *not* the water thermostat, which will only affect the temperature of your hot water. The boiler thermostat is normally a rotary dial on the front of you boiler. It may be hidden behind a flap or panel. What make/model of boiler do you have?

societys_child

I naturally assumed the op had checked the boiler therm . . .

keystone

Is the circulator circulating?

Check the three port (assuming you have a Y plan system) valve isn't stuck. take the head off and operate it manually.

Cheers

InsideInsurance

Its an Ideal Icos HE12, a small but noisy little thing.

It was a 101 issue, never had to touch a boiler to do anything before but there was a dial on the front that was set to 50%, turning it up to 75% and the radiators now much hotter.

bitemebankers

InsideInsurance wrote: »

there was a dial on the front that was set to 50%, turning it up to 75% and the radiators now much hotter.

Yay! Nice one.

societys_child

Result :j
you see . . mine doesn't have that control. Have to pull the knob off and press the buttons . ..same thing really, 'cept it's hidden.

bitemebankers

This is a fairly common problem in British homes, due to the half-baked laws governing new boiler installations. What usually happens is the old boiler fails and the owner/landlord doesn't want to replace the whole CH system so they just change the boiler. However, nanny-state regs demand that a condensing boiler is fitted. The problem is, condensing boilers are designed to run at a lower temperature than conventional boilers - in fact they will *only* deliver the efficiency benefits of condensing technology when operated at a lower temperature. BUT...when fitted to an old-style system of radiators, that temperature isn't high enough to heat the house properly. So the user ends up cranking up the temperature on the boiler which does work, but you lose all the benefit of having a condensing boiler in the first place!

Ideally, when a condensing boiler is fitted, the rest of the system, including all the radiators, should be replaced too. This rarely happens in practice. The property I'm renting at the moment is a case in point. Modern boiler, but the rest of the system is antique.

bitemebankers

No need to abuse me.

As it happens, I have quite a lot of knowledge on this topic, having done this sort of work for a living.