Thermostat in hallway: Has anyone covered their radiator with a blanket

FaceHead

_Jem_ said:

 I can turn the radiator valve down but it doesn't make much difference with it barley open the hallway warms up too fast.

Then turn it down more and/or use the valve on the other side to further reduce the flow through the radiator.

If one of the valves is fully closed then the hall won't be heating up too quickly, so it sounds like you need one or both of them open just a crack. 

_Jem_

@Ballymoney I am going to get the housing association on to it I'm waiting for it to get colder so they can actually feel what it's like, I can't see them moving the thermostat though. 

@coffeehound I can turn the lockshield off but then I'm going to be having the system running all the time. 

@FaceHead I will turn down the other valve and see how that goes, I didn't know that having both valves would be better. 

 I will also mention I'm on district heating and that's another nightmare lol

Ballymoney

_Jem_ said:

@Ballymoney I am going to get the housing association on to it I'm waiting for it to get colder so they can actually feel what it's like, I can't see them moving the thermostat though. 

Ah apologies, didn’t realise you are in a housing association home. Hopefully one of the solutions other members have suggested works out for you.

NSG666

Does the living room radiator get hot as quickly as the hall radiator? If not then open the lock-shield valve on the living room radiator a bit more or even fully if you have some pliers to turn it.
or
Turning the stat up will make the hall hotter still but at least the living room will get up to a comfortable temperature.
or 
Leave bedroom doors open so heat from hall goes into them

anotheruser

Basically, nobody is going to tell you putting blankets on radiators is a good idea, so I'm sorry to say you may as well drop that idea.

_Jem_

NSG666 said:

Does the living room radiator get hot as quickly as the hall radiator? If not then open the lock-shield valve on the living room radiator a bit more or even fully if you have some pliers to turn it.
or
Turning the stat up will make the hall hotter still but at least the living room will get up to a comfortable temperature.
or 
Leave bedroom doors open so heat from hall goes into them

They all get hot at the same time. I'm going to see what happens when both lockshields are nearly closed. 

Thanks. 

Bendy_House

Jem, what you suggested isn't at all daft; what you need to do is somehow reduce the heat output from the hallway rad, and possibly - at the same time - increase the outputs of the living area rads. So a blanket could well do that   But it ain't the right solution.

You've tried the correct obvious stuff - turning down the rad valves on the hallway rad - but it seems as tho' your whole system is not balanced properly to allow this.

The idea of 'balancing' is so that each rad receives the right amount of hot water flow to enable that rad to heat up at roughly the same rate as the rest. When you think about it, some rads are closer to the boiler (and pump) so are getting a stronger flow, and some rads are larger than others. Ergo, they don't need the same amount of flow. Once balancing has been set (using the fixed 'lockshield' valves) then individual rads can have their own output temps controlled using the 'control' valve, usually a TRV.

That hallway rad should really be noticeably starting to reduce its output when the valve at one end is tweaked down to, say, a turn or so from fully closed. And the same should apply to the other rads - usually between, ooh, a quarter-turn to a couple of turns, that sort of rough ballpark.

The fact that your hallway rad stays hotter and heats up faster than the others suggests not so much that the hallway rad cannot be shut down enough, but that all the other rads have been shut down too much - so the hallway rad is getting far too much flow arriving at its valve. If you think about it, if the hallway rad is still hard to control when it's turned down to a quarter-turn or so, then there are two solutions - one is to turn it down even more, but that doesn't always work since the valve gap is now sooo small, that even the valve getting hot will affect it too much. The other solution is to remove some of that excess flow from the hallway rad, and that's done by slightly opening up all the other lockshields, so all the other rads get the right balance of flow too.

I suspect that the system has been very poorly balanced, in which case the answer is not as simple as just shutting off the too-hot valve a bit more, but to check that the other rads aren't already closed too far, and are being deprived of water. Not a DIY job on a new house, tho'...

RG2015

_Jem_ said:

@Ballymoney I am going to get the housing association on to it I'm waiting for it to get colder so they can actually feel what it's like, I can't see them moving the thermostat though. 

@coffeehound I can turn the lockshield off but then I'm going to be having the system running all the time. 

@FaceHead I will turn down the other valve and see how that goes, I didn't know that having both valves would be better. 

 I will also mention I'm on district heating and that's another nightmare lol

This is true but you could turn off the lockshield, and then manually lower the wall thermostat to stop the system running after the required rooms had warmed up. This is not a permanent solution, but may be a temporary fix until you get it properly sorted.

_Jem_

@Bendy_House Wow you have gone into some detail cheers, I think the rads will have to be balanced, when I brought up the problem last year I think the developers didn't want to do much about it, it's been pretty poor service from them. This time though I can go to the housing association and tell them the problem and have the housing association plumber to come out. Just waiting for it to get a bit colder so I can actually give them as much detail I can.

NSG666

I take it these measures have already been covered as it's MSE forum..