To set the thermostatic radiator valves.
With the room at the desired temp, listen to the flow of water through the valve with the stethoscope. Slowly turn the valve down until you hear it just come to a stop.
I find that about 1/10 of the rotation between the numbered divisions is significant.
With the TRV4's, I find that you can feel the rotational resistance change as you move it towards the point where it's pushing the valve plunger closed, which is the current temperature.
Clever. ;-)
Agreed. I setup an elderly neighbours stat-valves the other way round. I closed all the doors then turned all the stat valves off and let everything cool down. Then I opened each up till the rad started to run warm according to my IR thermometer.
Then I went round the house a few more times at hourly intervals (keeping all the doors closed) and tweeks the valves accordingly for each room.
It would have been nice to hear the opening point of each valve though as there was a bit of a delay when using the IR thermometer.
Do you think one of the stethoscopes with the long rod they use for listening to engine / machine noises would work equally well as I already have one of those?
Cheers, T i m
Then you superglued the valves to stop fiddling?
Owain
Clever, but wrong. The TRV wants to be set to the point where the rad delivers the amount of power the room requires to stay at that temp, which is not trivial to measure.
NT
Nearly, they were lockshield valves (if that's the right name) so once set they were 'locked' and seem to have resisted tampering ever since. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
Ok?
Quite, so what did he do wrong that stopped that happening (and one assumes it did happen or he wouldn't have posted the process here?), and without any 'measurement' as such?
Bottom line ... if each rad sets each room to the required temperature and keeps it there, hasn't the process worked?
Cheers, T i m
In days gone by I just used a long screwdriver to listen to the engine. blade on engine and ear on handle.
+1
Me too, this is better though. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
he set flow to zero at the desired temp.
he didn't
NT
Ok.
So you think he posted here that he failed to achieve his goal?
Cheers, T i m
I find a piece of plastic tube is good for this. You can reach more places, too.
Far better than either full on or off as many houses seem to use them.
Perhaps I simplified my note a little - I am not turning it hard off. I can hear a very slight flow past the valve at my setpoint.
Quite. For my instance the house doesn't have an air-stat, just relying on the stat-valves for the CH and a cylinder stat for the HW.
The thing is, some of us didn't need it explaining any further as we would have used fuzzy logic to work out it must have worked for you or you wouldn't have posted the process here (although to be fair to NT you did say you turned the valve off till it you heard it stop). [1]
Whilst I'm sure there are a number of 'perfect' roles for more literal people, I can't think of one right now but an example of a bad fit would be in telephone tech support for pensioners. ;-)
The number of times I've heard 'there is nothing on my PC screen' when there is an active mouse pointer or spinning wheel etc.
Cheers, T i m
[1] This is why I hate writing out literal instructions for people (where the procedure isn't precise or complex as such) preferring to give people a better understanding of what is going on so that they can work it out for themselves, should things not be *exactly* the same when they go to do it. 'Teach a man how to fish ... ' etc.
It's always been popular, but frowned upon because of a number of cases where it slipped onto a moving part and was hammered through the skull.
There are disposable stethoscopes you can buy from a medical supplier. And fairly cheap normal ones. But the plastic tube to one ear trick works pretty well.
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