Cold in the attic.

getmore4less

Where does the OP say they have TRV?

Could be single thermostat control.

Leave the lockshield for now just turn the rads off to check you get more flow to the upper floor(s)

Once you know you can get hot water up there plan to attempt to ballance the flow.

akira181

Pretty much all radiators these days have TRVs. Single thermostat control systems still have TRVs on the rads (barring one for various reasons). You might call it a manual radiator valve but it's still the same thing. You set it to a setting (usually between 1 to 5) and once room temperature reaches that setting, it slows down the flow, regulating the heat output of the radiator. Without a TRV, there’s no way to control the output of the radiator in rooms outside of where the thermostat is located. It’ll be either be max heat all the time or nothing at all. Anyhow, it's irrelevant when it comes to balancing anyhow as they should be fully open when doing so.

Turning it off on the TRV/Manual valve or whatever you want to call it is a quick check to see if your boiler is capable of pushing water up to the attic but I'd expect a modern boiler that's 2 years old to be capable of such. Once it’s been established that the boiler is capable, the lock shield is the proper way to balance it.

jk0

I don't think the pumps fitted to combi boilers are up to pumping 4 storeys.

akira181

jk0 wrote: »

I don't think the pumps fitted to combi boilers are up to pumping 4 storeys.

Generally not a problem on the central heating side but again will largely depend on number of rads and their size. Hot water pressure from the tap may be a different story but that's more down to mains water pressure than the combi itself.

Mutton_Geoff

akira181 wrote: »

Then it's just a case of fine tuning all the rads over time until they heat up evenly.

Or preferably getting a 12 degree C drop across each rad which will be the max efficiency for the rad dissipation and the boiler operation. You will need to adjust pump speed at some point to achieve this.


The pumps are not very powerful but there will be an element of gravity feeding going on as hot water rises and cold water falls. In fact older CH systems (especially those that had a back boiler in the open coal fireplace) relied solely on gravity feed of the water.

getmore4less

Where does the OP say modern/recent radiators.

All we know is the boiler was changed.

Could even be an old pump.

Might even be zoned

trailingspouse

OK, just to confirm


The boiler is about 16 years old - it was installed by the previous owners, we bought the place six years ago and it was 10 years old then. Up to now, we've been perfectly happy with it - but then, we weren't living in the attic!!



It's an Edwardian house, with a 'proper' attic (ie, not a loft conversion). Before I took in a lodger we used one of the rooms up there as a guest bedroom and the other as our office. There's also a shower room.


Now, of course, the lodger is there for long periods of time, particularly at the weekend, and he's feeling the cold. And I agree with him - the rads certainly aren't as warm as the ones in the rest of the house. The question is, what to do about it?



There's a bog standard Kudox radiator in both his sitting room and his bedroom, and a 'towel warmer' style radiator in the shower room. In the rest of the house there are Acova 2-column rads. We don't have individual thermostats on the rads.


Hot water isn't too much of a problem in the attic - it takes a long time to 'come through' due to having to come up 4-storeys, but it's plenty hot enough once it gets there. He has an electric shower, so no issues there.


At the moment, in an attempt to get more heat up there, I've turned the boiler up - but that just results in the 'downstairs' radiators getting too hot to touch, without making much of a difference in the attic. I'm sweating down here!! And also - my bills!!!

FreeBear

trailingspouse wrote: »

Now, of course, the lodger is there for long periods of time, particularly at the weekend, and he's feeling the cold. And I agree with him - the rads certainly aren't as warm as the ones in the rest of the house. The question is, what to do about it?

There's a bog standard Kudox radiator in both his sitting room and his bedroom, and a 'towel warmer' style radiator in the shower room. In the rest of the house there are Acova 2-column rads. We don't have individual thermostats on the rads.

Short term expensive option - Fit TRV valves to all the radiators, balance them, and then adjust the TRVs in each room to your liking. Cautionary note - Sis had a small extension built and had a radiator fitted that was fed from another in an adjacent room. Despite repeated attempts at balancing the rads, the only way she could get that rad to heat up was by turning off the one in the adjacent room. You may suffer the same issue.

Short term cheap, long term, expensive - Give the lodger a storage heater and/or fan heater. Will run up the electricity bill....

Even although my CH system works (needs improvements), the bedrooms never get roasting hot. I aim for 16-18°C upstairs. I encourage the lodgers to make full use of the lounge and light the stove on colder nights. Gets well toasty in there (27°C with the door closed last night).

Doozergirl

Insulation....

Still not talking about it!

If downstairs is sweltering, upstairs should still be warm.

OP doesn't appear to be able to find the "thank you" button for us to know if something has been seen or acknowledged.

Hermione_Granger

Doozergirl wrote: »

Warm air rises so it should be fairly warm in October with the heat of the three floors below - if you have decent insulation. If you don't, it'll be cold!

Am I missing something as I'd have thought that it would be the opposite.
If they have decent insulation then it would be cold in the attic as the insulation would be stopping the heat from transferring from the floors below whereas poor insulation would allow the heat to transfer into the attic space.
After all, if decent insulation allows the attic to be warm, what's the point of the insulation in the first place?