It's a stupid central heating question! Part 2!!

[steve]

I think I've figured out what's happening, just not why.

I've used the highly scientific method of placing a food temperature probe on top of the radiators - great! All other factors being equal though, I think it's good enough.

All the radiators in the flat are registering around 48/49 degrees except the one in the living room. When the heating kicks in after a period of inactivity, that radiator reaches 48 and the room starts heating up but it begins to cool when the boiler's been going for a while - then it drops to about 38 or so and that's when the room stabilises.

Sounds like balancing?

So, my question is - given I don't have radiator thermometers to measure the temperature drop across all the ones in the flat, is the best thing to open them all and adjust them down 'til they're all equal?

[Set Square]

It's *better* to measure the temperatures if you can - and you can get a reasonable non-contact IR thermometer for about 30 quid.

However, you can also do *crude* balancing, based on 'feel'. Set any TRVs to max, and start with the all the lockshields fully open. Turn the room stat to max to make the system run continuously. Go round and feel the radiators, and turn down the lockshields on the hottest ones. Leave a few minutes to stabilise, and then repeat - aiming at getting all the rads to feel equally warm. You should be left with at least one rad with its lockshield fully open still.

[steve]

Cheers. Just opened all the lockshields and the one in the living room went up to 50 odd but it's now back down to 38 so tomorrow's task - call a heating engineer!

Thanks for everyone's help over the past couple of days.

[Matt Beard]

This may be a silly question... but if, as you say, you don't have a radiator thermometer, how come you have just quoted the temperature of your radiators?

[steve]

Meat probe resting on the top. Professional nothing, but I claim points for resourceful. I thangewe!