Heating issue in empty house

Swipe

As long as you keep it warm enough so any pipes or tanks don't freeze, the insurance will be none the wiser if you only kept it 10C. No pipes will be freezing at that temperature. Most of my house is colder than that for the whole of winter and I've never had an issue, including the tank in the loft at temps down to -10C overnight during prolonged cold spells. In fact, when I had empty house insurance I'm sure that the rules were 10C min temp and a visit once a week to check on things. Probably a good idea to runs some taps and flush any toilets each visit to get some water flow.

WIAWSNB

Don't worry about the cost, as a few £undred is meaningless in terms of a property - and estate - value.

Skint_yet_Again

WIAWSNB said:

Could we have a pic of the room stat, please? 

Warm day today. 15 degrees outside. Boiler comes on if I turn stat up to 16’. Bedroom rad slightly warm at one end may have been on earlier in the morning / night when temps dropped below 15’ 

Portable temperature gauges say indoor temp is  15 - 16’ in all rooms 

I have found the user manual and checked boiler pressure & pre-heat is set to off. 

I think it must be operating correctly? 

WIAWSNB

Skint_yet_Again said:

Warm day today. 15 degrees outside. Boiler comes on if I turn stat up to 16’. Bedroom rad slightly warm at one end may have been on earlier in the morning / night when temps dropped below 15’ 

Portable temperature gauges say indoor temp is  15 - 16’ in all rooms 

I have found the user manual and checked boiler pressure & pre-heat is set to off. 

I think it must be operating correctly? 

I would agree with that.

It appears to be that the hallway rad is not as powerful as the upstairs rads, so when the 'stat does call for heat, the hallway rad is slow to react so it keeps on running for longer than it needs to.

So, as before, turn all the other rads to '2' on their TRVs, and you can leave the hallway stat at '15oC' as requested. That is more than high enough to keep a house in good order. 

One more Q, please - what valves does the hallway rad(s) have? Pic?  

ic

Sounds to me like the system is unbalanced.  The water will take the easiest route through the system to leave and return back to the boiler.  If the rad in the hall is furthest from the boiler, and all the rads before hand have wide open lock shields, they'll allow the water to flow through those first.

Balancing is a simple, but time consuming process.  Fundamentally the closer the rad is to the boiler, the more closed the lock shield needs to be.  (So say close to the boiler = 10% open, furthest away 100% open).  Done right, you use a thermometer and keep adjusting so that rads lose 15 degrees between the flow and return - if less the water is just rushing through and back to the boiler.

TRVs don't balance a rad* - they simply go from full on to full off - the lock shield on the other way is about controlling the flow through the rad when the TRV is open.

(* unless you have self balancing TRVs, which are a thing - but they're expensive and unlikely to be installed).

Skint_yet_Again

Thanks WIAWSNB and ic. 

I won’t be going up again until next week. I’m not sure what order the rads heat up but nearest to furthest away as below
kitchen - no trv - cold 
living room - trv 2 - cold 
hallway- trv 5 - cold
bathroom - trv 2 - cold
bedroom 1 - trv 2 - warm
bedroom 2 - trv 2 - just warm 
loft room - trv 4 - just warm 

All rooms 15’ and wall stat in hallway says 15’. There was no draw on the boiler while I was there until I turned wall stat to 16’ and it clicked and the boiler light came on. I then turned it back to 15’ and it all clicked off. Perhaps I’ll have another look next week. 

WIAWSNB

The house will be fine. 15oC is waaay more than is needed to prevent any issues.