On 10 Dec 2003 08:42:24 -0800,
(Victoria) wrote:
Thank you for your replies.
In answer to your questions:
He never mentioned the pipes when quoting or installing the radiators.
The end radiator does get very hot if all the other radiators are
turned down to half heat. Does the balancing result in being able to
have all the radiators on full? I was kind of hoping to be able to
heat the whole house at once!
Yes, that's the whole point. The radiators that are nearer to the
boiler and pump will tend to get a greater flow of water because the
pipe runs are shorter, all else being equal.
The lockshield valves are there to reduce the flow through radiators
that have a lower flow resistance through being on shorter pipe runs.
Essentially, balancing will reduce the flow through those and the pump
will then tend to push more water around the further radiators.
In fact balancing is really done on temperatures rather than flows
because most systems have radiators of different sizes. It happens
that the amount of heat transferred is directly proportional to the
flow rate, so actually a larger radiator needs more flow than a small
one anyway. Therefore the way that balancing is done is to make the
temperature drop across each radiator equal to the others. It's a
bit of a lengthy process to do, although not difficult, because
adjusting a radiator's lockshield valve (the preset one that you don't
turn) will have an impact on the others. Therefore you have to go
round the house several times adjusting and measuring the temperatures
of the radiators. To some extent, once they are all heating, and
the rooms are getting warm, then some people call it a day. You can
be as much of a perfectionist as you like past this point.
It is a pretty easy job to do using either a clip on boiler
thermometer or a hand held infra red thermometer costing about £30.
Certainly DIYable.
I will certianly report this guy to the IoP. He is pretty aggressive
when we try and talk to him about these problems and keeps saying it
must be a problem with the old system, when he's changed everything
except the pipes.
Now why am I surprised. He's charged you a lot of money, to be
honest and it's unacceptable that he is walking away from making the
system work properly.
Obviously you *could* pursue him through Trading Standards or the
courts as well, however the value of the work that needs doing is not
high and is easily do-able yourself. So it's up to you whether you
want to make a stand on principle beyond reporting to the IoP or
whether to just chalk it up to experience and move on.
I assume that padding the pipes is relatively simple so I think we'll
give that a try. Any words of wisdom about the best way to lift the
floor boards (not tongue and groove) and which padding to use?
If you look carefully, almost certainly specific floorboards will have
been up before to put in the pipes in the first place. The boards may
even be screwed rather than nailed down. Since it isn't T&G this
makes life a lot easier.
You really need a wide levering object to lever the boards up
carefully. Something like a wide brick bolster is commonly used
just by hand.
e.g.
http://www.axminster.co.uk/default.asp?part=090032
but you can get them in any tool store or DIY place.
For the insulation, I've generally used flat felt type lagging, which
can be wrapped and taped around the pipes at the joists.
www.bes.ltd.uk and search on 12658. You should be able to get it
from heating or plumbing merchants as well. The foam tubular stuff
is a bit large for this application.
It goes without saying that care is needed not to nail or drill
through pipes when refitting boards.
Thank you again
Victoria
..andy
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