Central heating frustration! Help!

Rek88 · 1 December 2017 at 10:36AM

My old boiler died in October, it was on an old one pipe system so we opted to have the whole system ripped out and a new modern system fitted.

All the radiators bar one was fitted in October and the system worked perfectly, heating the house quickly.

We've since had the final radiator fitted in the dining room, it's a column one. It wasn't fitted at the same time as they sent the wrong one. Now the house takes an age to heat, talking 1 degree an hour. I appreciate it's been a particularly cold snap but the house isn't getting above 16c.

We've bled the radiators and this hasn't helped. They are all heating up hot but the ambient room temps isn't really budging.i have been reading online and will attempt some balancing today. I've felt the flow and return pipes on all rads and they are both scorching hot. This problem only started after the addition of the final radiator.

We have a Worcester Bosch green star combi that is more than sufficient for the size of house with New efficient radiators. I'm so frustrated, I've spent thousands on a system that right now is not heating the house to a comfortable temp. The old system would take maybe an hour to get the temp up to 19-20c.

Any advice what else I can try???

Help appreciated.

sk240 · 1 December 2017 at 1:38PM

Hi,

If the flow and return are both at equal temperature, then really they are not balanced very well, however will output the maximum amount of heat.
October was quite warm, it’s only now that it’s getting cold, so I think the addition of the radiator is just circumstantial.
What is your heating temperature set to, could you increase it?
If all of the radiators are as hot as you can get them, then it sounds like the radiators are just not big enough to heat the house.
Are the new radiators smaller than the old ones? or singles rather than doubles?

Ruski · 1 December 2017 at 9:18PM

Turn off the 'new' one: if it goes back to 'wonderfully efficient' like it was then I would suggest throttling down the new radiator.

HTH

Russ

blackshirtuk · 2 December 2017 at 3:44PM

Could it be the pump?

We had a new system fitted, but a couple of rads downstairs never got warm, after a lot of investigation the new "energy efficient "pump was automatically powering down and not producing enough "head"

Happily after reading the pump's manual, it was possible to set the "head" manually so all rads now get warm

nofoollikeold · 2 December 2017 at 4:42PM

A lot of designer radiators MUST be connected correctly, with the flow to the inlet and the return to the outlet. This is because they have an internal baffle to force the water all around the radiator. If they are connected wrongly, it is possible the water is flowing through only part of the radiator, very quickly, and effectively "short circuiting" the central heating system.

As suggested above, turn this radiator off. If the rest of the system then resumes normal service, investigate the new radiator and its connections. If the connections are correct, then, again as suggested above, turn down the amount of water flowing through this radiator by closing the lock shield valve then re-opening 1/2 turn.

Jonesya · 2 December 2017 at 8:18PM

Are the radiators all getting hot, at both the top and bottom and across the body?

Some of the tubular and designer radiators do need connecting the right way, otherwise the hot water flows around the top of the radiator and most of the body remains cool, while the flow and return are both hot. So you need you check the body as well.

But if the radiators are all very hot, and they're hot across all of the radiator body then they'll be running near their full output, which would point to an issue with their sizing.

You might want to get yourself a temperature probe and take a few measurements.

Central heating frustration! Help!

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