Am I being unreasonable? (Heat in new build issue)

psychic_kitten

At the beginning of winter I raised with our developers that we were seemingly unable to heat our master bedroom to a reasonable temperature (sub 16°C), despite the rest of the house achieving ~21°C under the same heating regime. During the storms we had literal wind coming in from the en suite extractor fan, and closing the door between the bathroom and bedroom made little difference. There is no thermostat on the radiator in the bedroom due to having a wall thermostat in the same room. Leaving the heating on all day would prevent the room dropping below 13-14°C but wouldn't increase the temperature past 16°C, while the rest of the house baked.

The reason this is such an issue is due to the room needing to accommodate a newborn in the immediate future, and so it isn't just a case of energy saving or getting an electric blanket, but one of safety. We need to be able to maintain a reasonable, consistent temperature for the baby.

I had asked for a thermal survey of the room to be conducted, and it took till February for them to send a plumber out who they advised was attending for a leak. I explained to the gent what the actual issue was and he was confused as to why he had been sent as this was not his remit and couldn't do anything. I was then advised by the developer that someone would come out to conduct the survey, but that it wouldn't be for another month (i.e. today). I pointed out at the time that the weather may be warmer and asked how an assessment could be accurate, to which I received no response. On asking for a third time yesterday, the survey has now been cancelled and we have been advised that it be conducted next winter instead.

I'm really angry that the developer has dragged this out for so long only to say it's now futile for another 6+ months. Obviously the chance of the temperature dipping significantly is lower now but given it's likely to take 6-8 weeks at least from booking an assessment to getting a resolution, we will not be in a position to safely endure this when ample opportunity has already occurred to get this sorted.

Sorry, it's a bit of a rant and I don't really know what to do from here. We can't change the weather granted but I'm quite disgusted that they have known for four months why we have been so keen to get this assessed and haven't acted in reasonable time.

Bendy_House

Doesn't sound unreasonable, at all.

More info, tho', please:

Type of boiler. Type of heating output - radiators? UFH? Warm air?

How many 'zones'? Ie, how many wall 'stats do you have? And where are they?

If it's a radiator in that bedroom, does it become 'hot' (ouch!) to the touch? Do the others?

psychic_kitten

Bendy_House said:

Doesn't sound unreasonable, at all.

More info, tho', please:

Type of boiler. Type of heating output - radiators? UFH? Warm air?

How many 'zones'? Ie, how many wall 'stats do you have? And where are they?

If it's a radiator in that bedroom, does it become 'hot' (ouch!) to the touch? Do the others?

Of course... 

It's a GCH combi boiler, one year old. The radiator in the bedroom is a single panel, I think the plumber measured it to be 80cm which is allegedly the correct size for the room, although it's situated underneath a triple window. We have curtains that sit on the windowsill so as to not cover the radiator. There's also no air in the circuit. No UFH anywhere.

We have two wall thermostats, one when you enter the bedroom (opposite side of the room to the rad) and one at the bottom of the stairs by the front door. Every other radiator has its own thermostat, just the master bedroom that doesn't.

I've never noticed it be ouch hot to touch, no. The others would get uncomfortable to lean on for more than a couple of minutes but again I've never noticed any of the rads being hot enough that you couldn't leave your hand there for 5 seconds.

Hope that's answered your questions? 

400ixl

My first question would be does it get hot to the point of untouchable (as I assume others in the house do)? If not, have the radiators been balanced?

If the answer to these questions is no, then that is something you could try yourself, plenty of how to's on the internet.

If the radiator does get very hot, then you could start to ask whether it ios powerful enough for the room. Measure the volume of the room and then the size of the radiator, there will then be guides on the internet as to what BTU rating you need to heat the room and what BTU's a radiator of that size is capable of.

If balancing doesn't work and the BTU rating is aligned then you need to start thinking about boiler ratings etc. But do the basics first.

This is essentially what I would have thought the engineer coming out to do the survey would do anyway and is easy enough to do yourself. You shouldn't have to, but better to do that than just wait.

Alderbank

You don't say how many zones but it sounds like two, a daytime zone of the downstairs radiators regulated by the hallway thermostat and a night-time zone upstairs regulated by the bedroom thermostat.

It also sounds to me that the problem is that the master bedroom radiator is simply throttled back too much by one or both of its valves. Perhaps the system has never been balanced? However I would have expected the plumber to have spotted that and made at least a rough and ready adjustment.

It doesn't have to be winter to balance the radiators. Heating systems are installed all year round.

Ant555

As someone that has only ever had one thermostat in the house - how are the two thermostats in this situation intended to work?

Does this mean that Psycho-kitten has two completely separate radiator pipe zones in the house and the hall 'stat control the downstairs zone and the bedroom 'stat control all the rads upstairs?

theoretica

Newbuild - so one of several properties?  You can sometimes pick up useful information by talking to neighbours.  Does anyone have a similar issue - if not, can you work out what is different, if yes team up to pressurise the developer.

marlot

Ant555 said:

As someone that has only ever had one thermostat in the house - how are the two thermostats in this situation intended to work?

Does this mean that Psycho-kitten has two completely separate radiator pipe zones in the house and the hall 'stat control the downstairs zone and the bedroom 'stat control all the rads upstairs?

Yes, that's right.  It works really well - many people need a different timing regime for upstairs.

rob7475

Your radiators should be hot enough that you can't hold them for more than a few seconds.

You suggest that the radiator in this room is not as hot as the rest which would suggest that it's not balanced correctly. If you turn the TRV's down on your other radiators, does this one get hotter? If so, you need to have a look at how to balance them. Basically, you turn down the lockshield valve on the other radaitors slightly and open this one a bit more. There's plenty of guides on how to do it though.

Is the flow temperature on your boiler set high enough? Increasing this along with balancing should fix your issues.

psychic_kitten

Ant555 said:

As someone that has only ever had one thermostat in the house - how are the two thermostats in this situation intended to work?

Does this mean that Psycho-kitten has two completely separate radiator pipe zones in the house and the hall 'stat control the downstairs zone and the bedroom 'stat control all the rads upstairs?

Pardon my lack of jargon when trying to explain. We only have one heating circuit, as in either the heating is on throughout the entire house or not on at all. All the thermostats do is trigger the heating to come on, so even if the downstairs meets the minimum temperature set, if the upstairs is too cold then the heating will come on for the whole house. That's what I meant by the rest of the house was baking throughout winter trying to heat the one room.

I cannot account for whether the system has been balanced, you would assume (or would you!) that this should have been done prior to completing on a new build. The plumber who came measured the radiator and attempted to bleed it just in case. He didn't assess any further than the rad in the room in question as we do not have issues heating anywhere else.

Just in response to @400ixl - The developers have confirmed that the size of the radiator meets the minimum requirement, but I will YouTube some balancing tutorials.

I think what contributes quite significantly is the amount of draught that comes in from the en suite and under the bedroom doors; although having them all closed doesn't make much of a difference. I did mention this to the developer but no acknowledge of this aspect. 

Ant555

psychic_kitten said:

Just in response to @400ixl - The developers have confirmed that the size of the radiator meets the minimum requirement,

What size is the radiator - you mention 80cm but I guess that is height? - how wide is it?
I wonder how easy it would be to simply uprate the radiator in there to a type 21 or a type 22 radiator.   


Although a different conversation - My perception from things I read on these forums is  that a modern house builder simply wants to do everything to the minimum standard (and cost) possible, get off site and disappear as quickly as possible and leave as many issues behind in the hope they will go away as homeowners may be reluctant to get legal.