TRV valves on old radiators

Virginia_Slim

The radiators in our house date from the 1980s when it was built. Plumber has advised that with TRV valves would allow us to control the heat in every room. (He doesn't want the job; it's his opinion.) I know TRVs work on new rads but would one enable a 35 year old rad to control the room temperature? 

Alter_ego

TRV's open and close depending on the temperature. So yes the plumber is correct. The age of the rads is not relevant
Of course if you want differing temps in adjoining rooms you'd need to shut the doors.

Gerry1

The TRV just controls the hot water supply to the radiator: it neither knows nor cares how old the radiator is !

Mister_G

If the system has not been flushed in all that time, it would be worth getting that done at the same time as fitting the TRVs.

Virginia_Slim

This is excellent news! Thanks for replying. I'll go ahead with the TRVs. 

matelodave

Certainly worth flushing all the crud out of the rads when you have them fitted

Farway

matelodave said:

Certainly worth flushing all the crud out of the rads when you have them fitted

Agree, I had old rads & when I had TRVs & new boiler the amount of crud that was flushed out was appalling

JC_Derby

Mister_G said:

If the system has not been flushed in all that time, it would be worth getting that done at the same time as fitting the TRVs.

1980's likely to be a microbore system? might not be able to power flush system, so removing and flushing radiators would be a good start

badmemory

My system is microbore & I had a system flush when I had my TVRs fitted.  It left me with a bleeding issue which he warned me about for over a week.