Yes you do, Lootenant. Otherwise a rad nearest to the supply can short-circuit all the others.
18 months ago we had our rads flushed out and new inhibitor put in. Following winter, only one rad, in the bathroom, got hot. Soon discovered that the plumber had opened all the lockshield valves fully. So all the hot water was taking the shortest, easiest path back to the boiler.I had to go around and adjust all the locksheild valves so all the rads got equally hot. Rads nearest the boiler got LS valves turned almost shut, those furthest away I left fully open. That way, with the thermostatic valves set about midway, everywhere got roughly equally warm.
In message , Lieutenant Scott wrote
Water takes the path of least resistance. If you left all the valves to your radiators fully open the pipe work to one radiator would provide the path of least resistance and the majority of the water would only flow through that one radiator. Some radiators would get so little water flow they wouldn't heat up, irrespective of the boiler rating.
If you want to see this for yourself just open the lock-shield valves on the radiators nearest to your boiler in your system and see if all the radiators now get heated satisfactory.
Fine, but all other things being equal the rads further away from the boiler are going to have less flow than the ones close to it.
My system has most of the rads piped in 10mm off manifolds, but a couple of later additions are piped in 15mm off the flow & return so these are turned down on the lockshields ft achieve the same differential.
I have one oversized radiator turned well down on its lockshield so my idea of a balanced system is not strictly balanced.
I think you may be missing the point... with an unbalanced system, some rads will get blisteringly hot, some warm, and some may stay stone cold regardless of the power of the boiler. If there is no water flowing through the rad, it will not heat, no matter what the boiler does.
Slapdash plumbers may fit TRVs all round the place and let them do the job - but even that is a bodge because it depends on some rooms reaching target temperature and throttling back their rads to even begin to heat other rooms. A well balanced system (with well chosen rad outputs) will warm all the rooms at a similar rate.
There is another variations on the theme:
Well your system must be really crap then. All my valves are fully open, and all the radiators get hot. The radiators have pipes thinner than the pipe coming from the boiler (obviously). Just like the wire supplying all the lightbulbs in your house is thicker than the filament in one lightbulb!!!!
John, I'm happy that you can afford to warm all rooms ;) I have 10 rads, only 5 are ever used due to the cost. If I used all 10 I'd be on the high street with a begging bowl :)
Think yourself lucky, I have a radiator in the garage which uses a lot of gas!
You should do the lottery, having such a badly commissioned system that works is pretty lucky.
Of course if you fit an oversized pump and run it on max most systems will get hot. But getting hot isn't enough with condensing boilers, the rads have to drop the return temp to about 50C so the boilers condense while still providing enough heat to do their job. This can be somewhat difficult if a lot more water is going through one rad than another.
Your wasting money then. I only heat rooms when they are being used. Each one is on a zone valve with a timer and a stat. My gas is less than £20 pm and that includes hot water.
Then that room will warm up first, that TRV will close first, and then the other radiators will warm up. If you want to get everything to warm up evenly when the TRVs are open you need to balance them all carefully, but it's not as essential to get it right as it was before TRVs. (On the other hand if the radiator closest to the boiler is the room you care least about, it would be silly to ignore it altogether.)
Well if you will keep parrots in your garage ...
If you need to keep that garage so much warmer than usual have you considered insulating it to the same standard as your house?
Cars don't need heating but having somewhere dry to keep them probably helps.
round like this. =A0If your boiler can't heat all the radiators at once, yo= ur boiler is too small for the system. =A0Even with all my radiators on ful= l blast, the boiler doesn't run continuously.
I suspect then you have a microbore (8mm, 10mm) sealed system radially distributed by a central manifold. Must not be operated without corrosion inhibitor else you will possibly not be able to flush the crap out the radiators while in situ. No leaks are tolerable, and less likely.
out of interest Why?
I'm spending months repairing the house due to keeping them in here before!
I've added insulation to the ceiling, walls, and doors. But adding a double brick wall would be going too far I think. It'll turn out cheaper than when it was heated with electrocity!
How do you get a car in a garage? Garages automatically fill up with junk. I'm having to build a third shed now to keep stuff in.
like this. If your boiler can't heat all the radiators at once, your boiler is too small for the system. Even with all my radiators on full blast, the boiler doesn't run continuously.
Of course. Do you mean to tell me that the large bore systems don't have a correspondingly larger bore pipe from the boiler to feed them? What twatt designed that?!?
I've been told by a heating engineer that's a load of crap.
Not sure what you mean.
It was fitted by the Corgi certified fitter that used to live here. It is a brilliant system and I have never even serviced it in 11 years!
And so you should. The pump should be able to push water through all the radiators at once.
Then don't use a condensing boiler. I have what he called a balanced flu.
Unless you are in the habit of letting your house cool right down, I can't see why this is a problem. Perhaps when you come home from holidays the house will warm up unevenly, but just open some doors!
"Lieutenant Scott" wrote
that's just a nicer way for him to tell you your talking out of your arse.
You stuff your house with junk and also have a bigger garage. It also helps if you move frequently. If you stay put as I have for the last 33 years it helps to have a barn instead of a garage. (And there is precious little spare space in my barn even though it is a two story affair with more floor space than my house).
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