Leaking radiator valve: cold weather?

I noticed yesterday that the pressure on our combi was low. I discovered a leak where the lock shield valve attaches to the rad stem. In fact the nut was surprisingly loose. The question is how did this work loose? The system has been stable for months and the rad (a towel rad) has been installed for 18 months. Could the recents very cold weather up here in Scotland be the cause? It has dipped below -10 an number of times recently. Should we keep the heating on during the coldest of nights? Thanks Ian Perthshire

Reply to
skiffer
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Presumably you've tightened up the union nut, and fixed the leak? I can't think why cold weather would cause it to come loose - the usual cause is insufficient tightening followed by vibration of some sort.

How cold does it get in the house during the night with the heating off? Obviously you don't want the system to freeze up - but that's not all that likely. As long as it doesn't freeze, and as long as you've got a nice warm duvet, it probably doesn't matter that it gets cold - unless you regularly have to get up multiple times during the night.

Have you got a frost stat? Most programmable room stats act as frost stats when the system is off, and turn on the heating if the the temperature falls below (usually) 5degC. Something like that might suit you. Or (again with a programmable stat) you could simply set the overnight temperature to (say)

12 degC to keep the house off the chill.
Reply to
Roger Mills

Someone being doing some over enthusiastic hoovering/mopping around the rad and bumped the union although a towel rad suggests it is in the bathroom so carpet is unlikely but not impossible .?

Reply to
Usenet Nutter

skiffer submitted this idea :

Why not just set back the temperature, rather than turning it off?

Our is left on winter and summer, 24/7 - all we ever do is turn the stat down over night and when the house is not occupied. At the moment we are setting it back to 15 degrees. Even when it was -6 earlier in the week, it never fired, because the interior never fell below 18.5 degrees over night.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Why not fit a programmable stat and forget about manually tweaking things?

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Dave Liquorice used his keyboard to write :

I had thought of that, but discounted it on the grounds that whatever times it were set to would not rally suite us. It is simpler and easier just to set two of the stat range stop pins and move it between them as needed. Thinking about it though, I wonder if they do stats with built in occupancy detectors.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

That's the problem with the Salus programmable 'stat I have .It has "set" periods that you can set it for which is fine if those periods suit you but in my case it doesn't really so if anyone knows a 'stat where you can decide the periods coupled with the reqd temp please let me know .

Reply to
Usenet Nutter

I'm not 100% sure what you mean, but I think that my Honeywell CM67 does what you are looking for. It provides 6 time settings per 24 hours - so you can divide the day into 6 (equal or unequal) periods to suit your requirements. I use mine to effectively provide 3 on/off periods by setting the temperatures of the 'off' periods low enough to prevent the heating from coming on. The on/off times can be anything you like - and are not 'fixed' until you have defined them. Is that what you want?

But there's an even cleverer bit - which it calls 'party' mode. The general idea is that you might want to keep the heating on later if you're having a party, but you can use it for anything you like - including turning the heating off while you're out shopping (say). You simply press the 'party' button, then select the number of hours, and then select the desired temperature. This over-rides the fixed programme and controls the CH to whatever you've set for the 'party' period.

Reply to
Roger Mills

Yup....sounds very much like what I need..in fact after I posted I had another look at the Salus instructions .I was under the impression that the "periods" it divided the day in to were set in stone but they are not ...they can be changed to suit just like your Honeywell so looks like I have already got what I am looking for . It just isn't as simple to set the same specs for every day as it could be ...you need to plod through each day period by period changing things to suit but I spose it would only need to be done the once..

The Salus doesn't go to parties but you can override the programme that is set at any time you want but when it gets to the next "changeover period" it reverts to whatever that next period is set to so if ,for example,it is at a lower temperature you might suddenly realise it is getting cold and need to go and override it again . What you have on the Honeywell sounds a better idea .

thx for your help.

Reply to
Usenet Nutter

Eh, you mean there are programmable stats out there that have fixed times only allowing the temp to be varied? That's a bit daft.

We have a Danfoss TP75 (superceeded now) that allows 6 programmable time points through the day (I think down to 1 minute resolution), each time point having a programmable temperature associated with it. Each day, on a 7 day cycle, can have completly different programs regarding both times and temps.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

That's what I thought ( as I posted seperately) about my Salus but that was just me not reading the instructions properly . It does have a number of set periods as a default but the time of them and the temp can be altered so you could,for example,have it set to the same temp thorought a 24 hour period ,every day if you wanted ....it's just a bit of a pain going through it day by day to change it .

Reply to
Usenet Nutter

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