Radiator and general heating

Islander_bloke

Evening everyone,

My wife and I have lived now in a rented detached house for 3 years. There is oil central heating to heat the house. There are still legacy storage heaters but they have all been disconnected and are not live. There is also a solid fuel stove installed. We have roof insulation installed and also half the house has had cavity wall insulation installed (other half of the house is solid wall)

There is only one "modern" radiator with a thermostat in the house and that's in the dining room. Which backs onto the sitting room that has the stove. That part of the house is not a problem to keep warm. All the other radiators in the house are old style which seem to have layers upon layers of paint and no thermostats. All the bedroom have these which is in the solid wall end of the house. We have lived with this and just supplemented heat with a panel heater in our room as the radiator by itself wont heat the room (even after the heating being on for 4 hours).

The bottom line is that the only room that gets the benefit of our oil heating is the dining room. We have just found out we will be getting a new bundle of joy in 6 months which has shifted our thoughts on us making do to what we can do before the baba makes an appearance. After some research online i know we didnt see one of these energy rating certificates when we started living in the property. Our landlord has been good to us with other requests but has never taken up any suggestions about the heating system but before it was just in passing.

Any advice?

reeac

Islander_bloke wrote: »

Evening everyone,

My wife and I have lived now in a rented detached house for 3 years. There is oil central heating to heat the house. There are still legacy storage heaters but they have all been disconnected and are not live. There is also a solid fuel stove installed. We have roof insulation installed and also half the house has had cavity wall insulation installed (other half of the house is solid wall)

There is only one "modern" radiator with a thermostat in the house and that's in the dining room. Which backs onto the sitting room that has the stove. That part of the house is not a problem to keep warm. All the other radiators in the house are old style which seem to have layers upon layers of paint and no thermostats. All the bedroom have these which is in the solid wall end of the house. We have lived with this and just supplemented heat with a panel heater in our room as the radiator by itself wont heat the room (even after the heating being on for 4 hours).

The bottom line is that the only room that gets the benefit of our oil heating is the dining room. We have just found out we will be getting a new bundle of joy in 6 months which has shifted our thoughts on us making do to what we can do before the baba makes an appearance. After some research online i know we didnt see one of these energy rating certificates when we started living in the property. Our landlord has been good to us with other requests but has never taken up any suggestions about the heating system but before it was just in passing.

Any advice?

A simple point: have you bled the radiators? Once or twice I've found a radiator is mostly cold due to air in it. Bleeding it out makes all the difference to its performance. I doubt if mutiple layers of paint would affect a radiators output much. Is there a room thermostat somewhere? If so what's it set at? Thermostatic rad. valves are OK for fine tuning but won't make much difference if the place is too cold overall.

Islander_bloke

Hi there,

Thanks for the response. We do bleed our radiators regularly just to keep the whole surface hot. I think the main thing is that the radiators have been in the property for about 20 years and so arn't pushing out the heat of the only new radiator thats in the house.

alleycat`

The two obvious bits of advice are, speak to the landlord and ask him if he is prepared to upgrade the radiators?

If he doesn't appear to be taking it seriously explain that, because you are having a new born, you might have to look to move.

Good tenants are usually worth the investment in the house and radiators are not that expensive when you work out how long they'll remain in situ.

Don't make it confrontational just explain it is an issue for you and your new circumstances.

N.B. I've assumed that moving is an option and you are not over the proverbial barrel.

Islander_bloke

Thanks alley,

We would like to stay in the house, its now become a home for us I will be speaking the landlord and seeing if he will help. I was just looking to see if we had any other leverage other than him just being in a good mood I know there is no legal requirement for him to have the house at a certain temp or anything like that. My old man had a spare temp alarm in the house so we have borrowed that today ( the ones with the traffic light warning system) and going to see what running the heating on full whack does to the alarm. At least that way we can say that even with the boiler on full we still are not getting an adequate temp for the little one.

macman

When was the boiler and CH system last serviced?

malc_b

Sounds to me like the radiators aren't balanced or they are clogged. Google balancing radiators for an explanation then try adjusting the lockshield valves to get a better heat distribution.

Islander_bloke

Boiler was serviced last year and the nozzle was changed. Don't get me wrong all the radiators do heat up but the heat output of the old ones are nowhere near as much the new one. None of the old ones have thermostats on them so the only heat control is on the boiler itself. I'm sure the system is pumping out enough btu just that the rads arnt conveying the heat.

Tonight the dining room (new rad) has been on for an hour and a half and the temp is 24 degrees. Soon to be baby's room and also the spare room (old rads) on for the same amount of time and the temp alarm is still flashing red which indicates less than 12 degrees. Temp outside is 4 degrees.

HappyMJ

What happens if you turn the dining room radiator off and force the output of the boiler through the other radiators? Does the boiler cycle on/off or continuously run?

Islander_bloke

I will try and get back to you. With it on te boiler cycles on and off.

malc_b

Islander_bloke wrote: »

Don't get me wrong all the radiators do heat up but the heat output of the old ones are nowhere near as much the new one.

The heat output of a radiator depends on its surface area. Old radiators tend to be plain panel (unless we are talking really old style cast iron jobs). New rads have metal fins on the rear to increase the surface area and so give out more heat for the same overall size (i.e. H x W). For more output in a small space double rads are used and again modern ones then to have metal fins to increase area.

The other important factor is the radiator temperature. Design level is 80C, 60C above 20C ambient. That is water in at 85C out at 75C. It's not enough that the radiators get warm they must all get equally hot. Drop from 60C diff to 50C and output is 80%, at 40C diff (60C temperature) it is 60%.

If all of your radiators are not hitting the same temperature then your radiators need balancing (or declogging).