Balancing radiators

[Tim Streater]

Or a cheaply installed one, or one where as in our case, the boiler and main bathroom where the tank and 3-way valve is, are in one corner of the house (on different floors). And it also turns out that some of the piping isn't too good either.

Now, what do you suppose I should do about that? Rip up all the floors and resize the pipes to the rads? [1] Move the boiler to a central part of the house, like in the under-stairs cupboard?

No, what I do is tune the radiator water distribution using the LSVs. Much easier, wouldn't you say?

[1] Course that would allow me to have underfloor insulation put in too, as well as insulating the pipes.

[John Rumm]

Even well thought out systems usually need balancing to get the best from them.

Better in the sense its less fussy about running in a dirty and poorly maintained system. You pay for that in lower efficiency though. So you pays your money and takes your choice...

Its an expensive fix at that point...

The source of the water in the primary circuit has very little to do with it. The sludge does not come from the water, it comes from corrosion of the system itself. In hard water areas there will be a small amount of scale deposited - but this only happens each time the system is refilled. Once the scale has precipitated out, there is no more to deposit.

The place the soft water will be of benefit is on the DHW side of a plate heat exchanger on a combi. It will stop that bit scaling. The does not prevent the primary side from getting blocked by rust or sludge though.

[thirty-six]

o mess around like this. =A0If your boiler can't heat all the radiators at = once, your boiler is too small for the system. =A0Even with all my radiator= s on full blast, the boiler doesn't run continuously.

't have a correspondingly larger bore pipe from the boiler to feed them? = =A0What twatt designed that?!?

Now that you've told us the water from the radiator you removed was clean, then I'd say that if you don't get kettle furring anfter 15 minutes of boiling then it's likely safe without treatment. This generally doesn't apply throughout the kingdom. In this case, you possibly wont need to flush the radiators despite the lack of treatment (which it doesn't apparently, so far, need).

[Andy Champ]

But they rust, and the paint loses its shine. And it saves a load of time on a frosty morning.

Andy

[Lieutenant Scott]

My neighbour just replaced her open flue one. It was on all the time! I assumed it was because they were old people and used the heating a lot, but their house didn't seem that warm really - maybe it was throwing half the gas out into the driveway (I could certainly smell it sometimes). The installation seemed to involve putting in a new chimney to the roof - I think mainly because the old one was leaking.

It'll be electric cars next....