Advice - Plumber or Heating Engineer

Mutton_Geoff

I still wonder when plumbers, gas safe registered or not, started calling themselves heating "engineers" since that term is usually reserved for people who have undertaken a 4 year course to degree/C&G standards with some on the job training like an apprenticeship. Sadly too many trades attach the word "engineer" to add gravitas and enable a higher fee rather than a measure of their skills.

Word of mouth recommendations far more valuable in the plumbing industry.

Lulu58

nofoollikeold said:

4. The point in balancing a system with TRVs is to get it to heat up evenly.  If you rely on the TRVs to self-balance, then some rooms will heat up really quickly while their radiators "rob" all the heat available, while others hardly start to heat up until the early ones have reached temperature and the TRVs have turned off.  

I was going to ask the same question as EssexExile so it's good s/he asked and thank you to those who answered.
We had a new radiator fitted on the found floor (kitchen/family room) during a refurb and the TRV is on maximum. The thermostat is in the hallway. When the doors are all closed on the ground floor the radiator doesn't seem to heat up very well, if at all so the kitchen is always cold. The only way we can get is to heat up is to have all the doors open but then all the heat goes upstairs.
Is this to do with the balancing of the system?

fred246

You have to make sure it's fitted correctly. If it's only just been done that's not guaranteed. You have to bleed the radiators ie get rid of all the air from the top. You have to make sure there is enough pressure in the system. The radiators have a variable resistor the TRV and a fixed resistor the lockshield valve. Start with radiators cold and turn the heating on. Work out which radiators get hot first. Tighten the lockshield valves on the ones that heat up first but don't fully close them. Keep repeating until they all warm up at the same rate. Only DIY enthusiasts do it well because it's time consuming and they are the only ones bothered enough to put the time in.

Lulu58

fred246 said:

You have to make sure it's fitted correctly. If it's only just been done that's not guaranteed. You have to bleed the radiators ie get rid of all the air from the top. You have to make sure there is enough pressure in the system. The radiators have a variable resistor the TRV and a fixed resistor the lockshield valve. Start with radiators cold and turn the heating on. Work out which radiators get hot first. Tighten the lockshield valves on the ones that heat up first but don't fully close them. Keep repeating until they all warm up at the same rate. Only DIY enthusiasts do it well because it's time consuming and they are the only ones bothered enough to put the time in.

Thanks for the info fred246, it's very helpful.
I've bled the radiator several times and overall it seems to be heating up fully when it does warm up.
How would I know if there is enough pressure in the system?

southcoastrgi

fred246 said:

I got a few quotes for new boilers a few years ago. The level of knowledge seemed to be generally very poor. I remember asking about boiler sizing. One guy just waved his arms around. I laughed. "Do you work in KW or BTUs?" I asked. He looked blank. It'll be this big indicating with his arms. I realised he just didn't have a clue! They all must has passed some sort of test.

😂😂 with a combi it's about how fast you want the hot water to heat up & therefore in turn how fast you want it to come out your taps, all modern boilers will modulate down on heating but some will go lower than others & therefore save you money, the kw/btu thing is like mm/ inches, very few will use cm (that is a customer thing) but most trades use both, for example I work out a boiler in kw but a rad in btu's, a rad is measured in mm but I fit it 8" off the floor, hot water from the boiler is in litres/min but the pressure is in bar, welcome to the world of confusion 

fred246

Lulu58 said:

fred246 said:

You have to make sure it's fitted correctly. If it's only just been done that's not guaranteed. You have to bleed the radiators ie get rid of all the air from the top. You have to make sure there is enough pressure in the system. The radiators have a variable resistor the TRV and a fixed resistor the lockshield valve. Start with radiators cold and turn the heating on. Work out which radiators get hot first. Tighten the lockshield valves on the ones that heat up first but don't fully close them. Keep repeating until they all warm up at the same rate. Only DIY enthusiasts do it well because it's time consuming and they are the only ones bothered enough to put the time in.

How would I know if there is enough pressure in the system?

You normally have a filling loop with a pressure gauge somewhere on the system. Normally near the boiler.

fred246

southcoastrgi said:

fred246 said:

I got a few quotes for new boilers a few years ago. The level of knowledge seemed to be generally very poor. I remember asking about boiler sizing. One guy just waved his arms around. I laughed. "Do you work in KW or BTUs?" I asked. He looked blank. It'll be this big indicating with his arms. I realised he just didn't have a clue! They all must has passed some sort of test.

😂😂 with a combi 

It's not a combi. It's a conventional boiler with an unvented cylinder. It's far too small for the property and doesn't understand modulation. It just keeps chugging. Luckily we don't have many baths or showers but if we were going to replace it I wanted the correct size fitted.