Guy King wrote:
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In practice they appear to work ok simply because theyre not needed in
the first place, thus their poor attempts at regulation go unnoticed,
and theyre generally set to well above the wanted temp, effectively not
giving significant regulation. But in an unbalanceable system they just
do not work well, and can not. The only way to temperature regulate a
room is to measure the temp away from the rad, not next to it.
I suppose if you want to be posh you'll have to have a motor valve for
each room, controlled by the roomstat drawing hot from a manifold.
I have hot air blowers with a thermostat controlling the fan, fairly
remote, in each upstairs room. The biggest problem is as the temperature
on every room gets close to optimum, the boiler tends to short cycle.
TRV's have their problems, but they are infinitely better than nothing
at all, or just a master thermostat.
I agree that a zone valve and thermostat in every room, all coupled into
the boiler on an OR basis, is the best. I may yet do that.
The whole purpose of temperature control is simply to prevent gross
heating beyond what is necessary for any particular area that has an
outside (heat losing) wall or floor or ceiling.
Then any additional heat generated by e.g. electrical equipment simply
reduces the call on the CH system.
In the periods of spring through autumn, MOST of the house heating is in
fact generated by waste heat from the electrical equipment..a typical
large room here is adequately heated with about 300W, and it takes that
much to LIGHT them, without CFLS..the smaller rooms need only about
50-100W..