When do you need to balance radiators?
There are many reasons to balance your radiators.
If you notice that some of your radiators take longer to heat up, or some radiators stay cold, your system likely needs balancing.
Balancing will improve your heating system's efficiency and how much money you save.
Read on to learn more.
Considerations before balancing
Why balance your radiators?
Hot water coming from your boiler is lazy.
It will naturally find the easiest and shortest route back to the boiler.
If you don't restrict the flow, the radiators closest to your boiler will receive the greatest heat.
As the water flows further away, the heat dissipates, leaving the furthest radiators with lower temperatures.
Balancing restricts the flow on the early radiators, encouraging the hot water to travel to the furthest ones.
Bleeding vs. balancing
Bleeding a radiator is different to balancing it.
Bleeding releases trapped airlocks that cause a single radiator to not heat up evenly, such as being cold at the top.
Balancing deals with every radiator in your home to guarantee the even distribution of hot water.
Preparing to balance your system
Balancing requires a:
- Radiator bleed key
- A pen and paper
- A lockshield valve adjuster (or adjustable spanner).
To get the best results, you should also use a digital thermometer, a multimeter with a thermometer function, or a thermal imaging camera.
Step 1: Bleed and open
Begin by turning off your heating system and allowing it to completely cool.
Once cooled, turn your radiators off and bleed the radiators to remove any trapped air.
Next, remove the plastic covers and open all of the lockshield valves completely by turning them anti-clockwise with your spanner.
You should also fully open all the thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs).
Step 2: Map the system
Restart your heating and note the sequence in which the radiators begin to heat up.
This sequence indicates the order in which each radiator receives the hot water.
Turn the heating off and allow the system to cool down again.
Adjusting the lockshield valves
Step 1: The first radiator
Restart the heating again and go to the radiator that heated up first.
Close its lockshield valve fully by turning it clockwise, then re-open it anti-clockwise by a quarter of a turn.
Step 2: Checking the temperature
Once the radiator has heated, sample the temperature of the pipe bringing water into the valve.
Then, take the temperature of the pipe leading out of the other valve.
You are aiming for a temperature drop of 11 to 12 degrees Celsius across the radiator.
Gradually open the lockshield valve until you achieve this temperature difference.
Repeat this process for all radiators in your sequence.
The old school method
If you do not have precision temperature reading equipment, you can still balance the system manually.
Open the first radiator's lockshield by a quarter of a turn.
Go to the second radiator and open its lockshield a tiny bit more than the first one.
Continue this pattern, opening each radiator slightly more than the previous one, until the very last radiator on the system is fully open.
What if balancing doesn't work?
If balancing improves things but cold spots keep returning, sludge buildup in the pipework may be the cause.
In this case, a power flush can resolve this where balancing alone can't."
Extra tips for efficiency
High efficiency boilers
Modern condensing boilers run at their peak efficiency when the flow temperature is kept low.
(Condensing boilers are the most common type of boiler.)
This is ideally between 50 and 60 degrees Celsius.
Because of this lower temperature, having a properly balanced system is vital to ensure that enough heat actually reaches every room.
Decorating and removing radiators
If you ever need to take a radiator off the wall to decorate, count the exact number of turns it takes to close the lockshield valve.
Write this number in pencil on the radiator.
When you put it back, simply open the valve by that same number of turns so you don't have to balance the whole system from scratch again.
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