Are new radiators more efficient?

[ericmark]

I'm not laughing at your misfortune but the story did make me smile.

The problem was it took me some time to realise what was going on. The Nest thermostat also has a built in PIR so walking past the thermostat and the heating went to comfort, but if I worked on my PC in bedroom I was not walking past the wall thermostat so it was assuming I was out the house. It was second day before I twigged what had happened.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

"Is likely" is the point I'm making. That implies a prediction of future weather.

I have a basic system, room-stat and TRVs, and I don't get over- (or under-) shoots. Some people I know are forever adjusting their room-stat. I set mine at 20°C and don't touch it from one year's end to the next. I leave CH and HW live 24/7, I find it uses no more gas that way than On/Off on a timer.

Not at all, where would such a system get it's weather forecast from and why would it even need to, it is simply not relevant to it or the demands placed upon it.

My system is likewise on 24/7 - there is no provision to automatically turn it off - it simply operates on desired temperatures, between preset times of day. Left to it's own devices, I have it set for 16C during the night, 18C during the day - in the hall. The temperature never falls to 16C during the night, so the heating never fires up. During the day, I might manually increase the 18C a degree or two higher temporarily, but usually I don't need to.

When the time period changes from 16C to the 18C period, because of the predictive system, it know just at what modulation level and for how long to burn to achieve the 18C.

Before I installed y present system, it was just a basic wall stat and timer. Then I would have it set to on 24/7, but manually adjusted the stat from 16C to 18C and back. As it was moved up to 18C, the boiler would run flat out with much creaking of pipes, until the stat said enough. Then as it fell below 18C, the creaking would repeat as it would throughout the period when heat might be needed to maintain 18C. Rather than the boiler blindly putting heat out, the boiler knows just how much heat it needs to output to maintain the desired temperature - perfect feedback.

The creaking is much less now, almost none once it has made 18C, the boiler simply modulates down to what is needed to maintain the 18C.

 

[BlueLoo]

18c in the day?

brrrrr

 

[ericmark]

18c in the day?
brrrrr

in the hall

I also have hall cooler than other rooms, idea is wall thermostat temperature low enough so on a prospective warm day it will not switch on. So we are told it should be on entrance level, in a room kept cool, with no outside door, and no alternative heating, my house no such room exists, so nearest is the hall, the thermostat is actually near enough centre of house, and doors left open can mean cools or heats from kitchen, dinning room, living room or shower/toilet room.

So to get the boiler to fire up, often leave the dinning room or kitchen door open.

But depends on design of home, mothers house the bay window in living room was a big problem, it was a sun catch, and thermometers around the room could show a range of 18 - 28°C all in the same room. We are shown the natural circulation and how the thermostat should be opposite wall to radiator (Pre modulating boiler and TRV's) but often in a hall, which has stairs, there is no way those diagrams can work with a hall with stairs.

I am sure the wall thermostat could be replaced with a simple timer turning on heating 6 times a day for ½ hour each time and control the home temperature just as well with non modulating, and just on all day off all night with modulating boilers and likely work just as well, assuming all TRV's and lock shields correctly set.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

But depends on design of home, mothers house the bay window in living room was a big problem, it was a sun catch, and thermometers around the room could show a range of 18 - 28°C all in the same room. We are shown the natural circulation and how the thermostat should be opposite wall to radiator (Pre modulating boiler and TRV's) but often in a hall, which has stairs, there is no way those diagrams can work with a hall with stairs.

The unit I designed decades ago, pre-wireless sensing - was able to address that problem using multiple temperature sensors, so it was able to grab an instant average, minimum or maximum temperature, depending upon how they were connected.

 

[ericmark]

I looked at the settings for my thermostat, I can't find out how to set the distance at which geofencing switches the heating on, all I can do is set the eco and comfort temperatures, it did work until I turned if off, but we are left with all these systems which may or may not work with no idea what they are doing and when.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I looked at the settings for my thermostat, I can't find out how to set the distance at which geofencing switches the heating on, all I can do is set the eco and comfort temperatures, it did work until I turned if off, but we are left with all these systems which may or may not work with no idea what they are doing and when.

Some complex systems are just too complex for their own good, great when they work, but when they fail - you will be struggling to find anyone who understands them well enough to find issues. They are just like modern cars - the only one I would trust with the knowledge to work on more than the straightforward basic mechanicals - is me. If I cannot sort it, then it is a 400 mile trip to someone with the necessary expertise.

I don't know how my partner will manage when I am gone, she goes glassy eyed when I just try to explain the basics and a lot of stuff in the place is custom.

 

[ericmark]

I have had two local experts look at my central heating, a plumber who tries to claim he knows it all, not sure if any better than me with central heating, and the oil central heating guy, who I like a lot better as he will admit when he does not know something.

How far I would need to travel to find some one who knows more I don't know. But how do you know if some one knows more or less than some one else?

I have done a degree course, and I would not say that taught me any more useful information to what I already had for normal electrical work, it may have explained more with reference to my hobby amateur radio, but not how to wire a house.
Now the collage teaching me how to do IT has likely helped, Cisco systems, but the point is listing my exam passes will not really show how good I am, I could be just good at passing exams.

So how does one select a tradesman, well one thing I quickly realised is good tradesman do not need to be members of any get me a job system, so any organisation who claims to have a list of good tradesman for you to select from needs avoiding.

But I have a good son, so he will likely help, but even he filled a ceiling with GU10 lamps, so he does have some strange ideas.

But the whole question of radiator type has been going on for years. I had a gas boiler fixed output and a Myson radiator, and no question the Myson fan assisted radiator was good. But for it to work it needs an unrestricted flow, this does not seem to line up with modern gas boilers where the return water temperature is used to set how much the boiler is modulated.

Now the old school system where water pumped around in a circle would clearly work where there is no restriction to flow, but my house was not piped in series but like most homes in parallel. And the whole idea of the TRV and by-pass valve is based on parallel pipe work. And the setting of the lock shield valve is rather important. But the Myson had no lock shield valve.

Now people have said OK it does basic same thing, once room is warm enough does not really matter if TRV closes and by-pass opens, or the fan stops blowing, either way hot water returns to the boiler, but whole idea of mixing the systems does not make sense in my mind.

It says should not use micro bore with Myson, but I did, and it worked fine. Possible it was the use of micro bore which ensured the other radiators still worked.

But I over the years have had so much bad advice about central heating, for example I was told you never fit a TRV in the same room as a wall thermostat, however it was doing just that which transformed my mothers central heating, clearly needs careful setting, but it seems some books have never been ungraded when the condensate boilers came out.

One minute we are talking about geofencing and not heating the home until the last minute before returning home, then some one talks about under floor heating, which is nearly as bad as storage radiators in reaction time.

It seems the whole industry is working where the left hand does not know what right hand is doing. We have one boiler manufacturer saying how the TRV is king and you should not use mark/space control with their boiler, then a wall thermostat comes out using mark/space control to stop hysteresis.

One minute it is a TRV telling a hub/thermostat what to do which in turn tells the boiler, then we have boilers which will not allow third party wall thermostats to connect to ebus, and their own don't connect to TRV heads.

We have zone rules which one guy says means two zone valves must be used, then another guy says well can't used opentherm with zone valves, OK know EPH do a wall thermostat that will, but that thermostat will not work with TRV heads.

As to Nest, sure it would be great with a hot air system, but temperature senders not released in UK, and support for third party TRV heads removed.

It seems the whole industry is in a mess.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I have had two local experts look at my central heating, a plumber who tries to claim he knows it all, not sure if any better than me with central heating, and the oil central heating guy, who I like a lot better as he will admit when he does not know something.

How far I would need to travel to find some one who knows more I don't know. But how do you know if some one knows more or less than some one else?

I have done a degree course, and I would not say that taught me any more useful information to what I already had for normal electrical work, it may have explained more with reference to my hobby amateur radio, but not how to wire a house.
Now the collage teaching me how to do IT has likely helped, Cisco systems, but the point is listing my exam passes will not really show how good I am, I could be just good at passing exams.

So how does one select a tradesman, well one thing I quickly realised is good tradesman do not need to be members of any get me a job system, so any organisation who claims to have a list of good tradesman for you to select from needs avoiding.

To be honest, I really don't know how you can quickly assess anyone's ability and capability, other than knowing them for a long time. Those I met in my working life, I could assess the limits of their abilities, everyone else I treat with extreme caution, including the self proclaimed experts on her.

I personally have had few experience where I have needed to rely on external experience and mostly it has been a disastrous experience, with few pleasant experiences when I was out of my learning experience.

One of the rare times I broke down, the clutch master failed in Pembrokeshire, which is cabin mounted over the pedal. The breakdown guy phoned home and was advised to pump fluid in through the bleed nipple in case it was trapped air, despite my telling him the reservoir was full and it was the piston seal which had failed. It did work, so he rang again and told to keep on pumping fluid. Idiot pumped 2L through, all over the Wilton, until I told him lost it and insisted he stop being silly. They then charged me £460 to replace it, quick 30 minute job and £130 for a new cylinder, had they listed when I told them the quick easy way to swap it out, reusing the original pipe - but no a full mornings work replacing cylinder and pipe quite unnecessarily.

I took my car for rust treatment on the rear suspension arms last year, they claimed to be specialists - telling them the arms were the absolute priority and to touch in anything else they thought it might need. Knuckle draggers sprayed up most of the rear underside, but left the alloys on, covering the newly refurbed alloys with the stuff, painted the underside of the arms, but left the tops untouched. I had to lean on them to do the tops.

New to engine management, my Granada struggled to manage an even tick-over so I rang a specialist, who said it's the IACV (idle air control valve) needs replacing. No charge, I simply replaced it and all instantly back to normal.

Whilst commissioning some big new pumps on Anglesey, I just could not get the variable speed motor to run properly. Everything working as it should at my end, so I had LS send out their engineer to give us some ideas, they were supposed to be the expert. I already had it in mind that it was likely just some cams on the motor speed controls which LS had set up wrong. LS spent a whole day there, trying to fathom it and got nowhere at all, so I jumped in with my suggestion of the cams being set up wrong. No cannot be and he went back to Norwich. Copper lump hammer out, tapped the cams round to where I thought they ought to be and it behaved perfectly, that is apart from the 1 mile long remote control wires, which operated on DC...

That beat me and I had to call out our own in house expert, who suggested the control cables were charging up with the DC and delaying the response many minutes. A quick redesign on site to use ac for the remote controls and it worked perfectly.

So if I get any faults, I first of all read up get myself up to speed, aiming to diagnose my self and fix myself, or at least give an instruction of what needs replacing to fix it - absolutely not worth the risk of relying on anyone else.

 

[BlueLoo]

To be honest, I really don't know how you can quickly assess anyone's ability and capability, other than knowing them for a long time. Those I met in my working life, I could assess the limits of their abilities, everyone else I treat with extreme caution, including the self proclaimed experts on her.

I personally have had few experience where I have needed to rely on external experience and mostly it has been a disastrous experience, with few pleasant experiences when I was out of my learning experience.

One of the rare times I broke down, the clutch master failed in Pembrokeshire, which is cabin mounted over the pedal. The breakdown guy phoned home and was advised to pump fluid in through the bleed nipple in case it was trapped air, despite my telling him the reservoir was full and it was the piston seal which had failed. It did work, so he rang again and told to keep on pumping fluid. Idiot pumped 2L through, all over the Wilton, until I told him lost it and insisted he stop being silly. They then charged me £460 to replace it, quick 30 minute job and £130 for a new cylinder, had they listed when I told them the quick easy way to swap it out, reusing the original pipe - but no a full mornings work replacing cylinder and pipe quite unnecessarily.

I took my car for rust treatment on the rear suspension arms last year, they claimed to be specialists - telling them the arms were the absolute priority and to touch in anything else they thought it might need. Knuckle draggers sprayed up most of the rear underside, but left the alloys on, covering the newly refurbed alloys with the stuff, painted the underside of the arms, but left the tops untouched. I had to lean on them to do the tops.

New to engine management, my Granada struggled to manage an even tick-over so I rang a specialist, who said it's the IACV (idle air control valve) needs replacing. No charge, I simply replaced it and all instantly back to normal.

Whilst commissioning some big new pumps on Anglesey, I just could not get the variable speed motor to run properly. Everything working as it should at my end, so I had LS send out their engineer to give us some ideas, they were supposed to be the expert. I already had it in mind that it was likely just some cams on the motor speed controls which LS had set up wrong. LS spent a whole day there, trying to fathom it and got nowhere at all, so I jumped in with my suggestion of the cams being set up wrong. No cannot be and he went back to Norwich. Copper lump hammer out, tapped the cams round to where I thought they ought to be and it behaved perfectly, that is apart from the 1 mile long remote control wires, which operated on DC...

That beat me and I had to call out our own in house expert, who suggested the control cables were charging up with the DC and delaying the response many minutes. A quick redesign on site to use ac for the remote controls and it worked perfectly.

So if I get any faults, I first of all read up get myself up to speed, aiming to diagnose my self and fix myself, or at least give an instruction of what needs replacing to fix it - absolutely not worth the risk of relying on anyone else.

+1

 

[ericmark]

Some times they surprise one, had problems with wife car (Jag) not starting, did not think battery, but could not work it out, agents changed battery and it seemed to have cured the problem for a long time, then happened again, got out RAC he found it, wife not pressing hard enough on brake peddle, so some thing I had ever considered.

But some times one does wonder, some of the experts sent out to the Falklands, they should have realised we were not idiots, so if we could not find it, then is was not going to be easy to find, so often however they failed.

I do remember a concrete mixer, told had to be done by their agents, when they realised this would take 8 weeks (boat every month so two weeks out, four weeks to next boat, two weeks back) they sent instructions, and it was so easy.

 

[fixitflav]

LS send out their engineer

I think LS is Laurence-Scott, but (if I'm right) not everybody on here is likely to know.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I think LS is Laurence-Scott, but (if I'm right) not everybody on here is likely to know.

Yes, well spotted.

 

[Stumacdo]

I'm looking to replace my radiators with one eye on a future heat pump so was planning to calculate each rooms required BTU rating to operate at 40 degrees and then turn down my boiler temp to mimic an air source heat pump. Does this work logically or am I missing something? New radiators this year, but air source heat pump could be a few years away. Is this going to be a cost effective approach in the medium term or will I end up burning more gas?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

As you’ve put some thought into this, let me try this on you! I don’t think outdoor weather compensation, which is intended to improve efficiency by giving lower boiler return temperature hence more condensation, does much good.

My own understanding of weather compensation is that the outdoor ambient is used in combination with an adjustable value, which then allows for a calculation of how much heat the boiler needs to produce to change the temperature in the building to a newly set temperature. It avoids the overshoot and undershoot.