Radiator valves and energy consumption

83dons2

I have a Bosch ct200 wifi thermostat with new worcester boiler using their easycare setup. My question should I just turn up all my radiators to full valvue value of 6 out of 1-6 or should I have it set lower say 3? I have no idea what 1-6 means when the thermostat is set to say 20 degrees. Does 6 mean the house heats up quicker then cuts off thus saving energy or what? Am i best to manually turn off the radiator valves inm rooms I am not to save energy and just heat the room I am in ot is there not much difference in doing this and just keeping all radiators in the house on and heating all rooms to 20 degrees. I dont know how the boiler works and what sort of energy it consumes. Thanks for any advice. I am single and live in a 7 room house with radiators in every room so in theory I have no need to keep every room warm at all. I was just going to manually turn it on when i need it as well rather than programme set times for it to come on.

diystarter7

Get TRV's fitted and adjust heat in each room saves a bomb

83dons2

In the meantime should have them all on full blast, set the thermostat to desired temperature then turn valves off in rooms i dont need?

And if I did get TRVs would I still just have the valve on each radiator turned up full all the time ie 6/6?

ChaunceyGardiner

83dons2 said:

And if I did get TRVs would I still just have the valve on each radiator turned up full all the time ie 6/6?

The knobs with 1-6 are TRVs. As suggested above, set each according to the desired room temperature. If you turn them all up to 6, every radiator will continue to receive hot water until the central thermostat is satisfied.

Spoonie_Turtle

If there are rooms that don't need to be fully heated you can turn the valves down so the radiators in each room stop warming up once the room reaches that lower temperature.

If you google the make of your valves then you should be able to find the temperature each setting means.  Obviously if 6 is say, 30℃, then they're not going to get up to that, but it means the radiators won't stop warming up until the boiler reckons the area with the main thermostat is up to temperature.  As far as I understand it, anyway.

If you're able to, setting your thermostat to 19 or 18℃ will save you money compared with 20℃ too.

tacpot12

TRVs usually have between have 4-5 degrees C between each numbered marking. e.g. number 3 might be 19 C and number 4 might be 23C on your TRVs. The numbers are there not to set a specific temperature you want, but to allow you to know where you have set the TRV to when you have adjusted the TRV down to the room temperature you want. 

So to use them you set them to a high value, and then keep turning them down every hour or so until the room is at the temperature you want - you have to wait long enough for the room to cool down. Once you have the room temperature where you want it, then you look at the numbers to see what number you need to reset the TRV to if it is ever moved.

Alnat1

Each brand of TRV will be slightly different so you need to experiment a bit to get the results you want but below is an example of what the numbers might mean. It also depends on size of room, insulation etc.

The numbers on the valve roughly correlate to the room temperatures below. When the room drops below these temperatures, the TRV will allow hot water to flow into the radiator:

• 0 = Off
• * = 7°C
• 1 = 10°C
• 2 = 15°C
• 3 = 20°C
• 4 = 25°C
• 5 = 30°C

BUFF

83dons2 said:

I have a Bosch ct200 wifi thermostat with new worcester boiler using their easycare setup. My question should I just turn up all my radiators to full valvue value of 6 out of 1-6 or should I have it set lower say 3? I have no idea what 1-6 means when the thermostat is set to say 20 degrees. Does 6 mean the house heats up quicker then cuts off thus saving energy or what? Am i best to manually turn off the radiator valves inm rooms I am not to save energy and just heat the room I am in ot is there not much difference in doing this and just keeping all radiators in the house on and heating all rooms to 20 degrees. I dont know how the boiler works and what sort of energy it consumes. Thanks for any advice. I am single and live in a 7 room house with radiators in every room so in theory I have no need to keep every room warm at all. I was just going to manually turn it on when i need it as well rather than programme set times for it to come on.

Mechanical TRVs are for individual radiator control, they can't switch the boiler on or off.
The 1-6 settings are for the temp. that the radiator valve closes at (& that individual radiator stops heating) - they have absolutely no impact on the rate at which the radiators heat (a seemingly common misconception is that they do).
 .
Your room 'stat (CT200) has the ability  to switch the boiler on & off.
If the room where your room 'stat is (do you move it when you move room?) also has a TRV then set that TRV to max. - this will let the CT200 be the priority control & shut the boiler down when the room reaches temp. set on the CT200.
If you set that room's TRV lower than the CT200 then the room would never achieve the temp. set on the CT200 & the system would continue to run & consume gas even though your radiator would not be heating the room any more.

You don't need to heat rooms that are not in use to as high a level as the one that you are in. I would suggest that 2 would be reasonable if not used often (& shut the door). 

FreeBear

83dons2 said: I have no idea what 1-6 means when the thermostat is set to say 20 degrees. Does 6 mean the house heats up quicker then cuts off thus saving energy or what?

Increasing the thermostat setting or setting the TRV to 6 (or even 11) will not make the house heat up any quicker. If anything, you will be wasting energy as the boiler runs at full tilt trying to heat the place for longer.

Set the thermostat to a temperature you are comfortable with (19°C is fine for most people), and turn the TRVs in the rooms you are using to 3 or 4. In unused rooms, the TRVs can be set to 1 or even * (the frost setting).