Townhouse central heating - cold downstairs

Wassa123

Hi all,

I've finally completed on a home and have been there for just less than a month.

The problem i'm noticing is that the ground floor is a lot colder than the above floors.

I know that the causes are:

• Heat rises
• Laminate floor on ground floor doesn't provide a lot of insulation vs the carpets upstairs
• A lot of doors for the heat to escape from
• Less radiators downstairs than upstairs

The reds are the radiators, green is the thermostat.

Is the best solution just to turn down the TRV's on the radiators upstairs to level it out and crank up the thermostat?
Would this cost more as the boiler has to work harder?
Do you think it's worth putting another radiator in on the side wall of the living room?

phoenix_w

Sounds like you need your system balancing. Try reducing the flow on a couple of the upstairs rads (close the lockshield valve 1/2 turn at first) which should help the flow on your downstairs ones and even things out a bit. Try and set your TRV's so that your living area are on a setting where they won't turn off (5) and set the upstairs ones to be a lot cooler (2-3).

Smiley_Dan

How old is the house and if it's fairly recent who built it?

What is on either side of the house?

richy999

Yep, turn down the TRV's on the upstairs rads.

As to turning the thermostat up... if the room it is in never get's hot enough to match the thermostat, and thus switching off the heating, turning it up has no effect, if it does then yes, experiment with turning up the thermostat a little.

You could try turning up the heating control on the boiler itself, this will make the water in the radiators hotter.

The radiator in the lounge should ideally have been properly sized for the room. The existing radiator could be upgraded or replaced with a larger one, which would be cheaper to do than installing a extra radiator. Would suggest that you try adjusting the TRV's and boiler 1st before shelling out on new/extra raditors.

Le_Kirk

If your reception room radiator has a TRV, make sure it is fully open at all times. Otherwise post #2 is the way to go plus paragraph #3 in post #4. If you turn down the TRV's in the upstairs rooms they will still take the hot water first before they heat the room up to the setting on the TRV. What you want to do is force the majority of the heat to the downstairs radiators.