Balancing Radiators some colder than others

[andyr123]

hello all can I have some advice / experiences please.

if a radiator is cold/colder than the others on the system would I be looking to open the return lockshield valve more, or less?

all rads have thermostat valve (TRV's) on which is turned up to highest (5) and radiators all bled so its no issue of air in the rads.

at the moment I have each lockshield valve turned about 1 full turn from the closed position, because if I new which was the last rad I was going to gradually open up lockshield valve as I went along and fully open the last radiator on the system. - I cannot tell which is last or first radiator on the system because all the pipes are buried under the floors and they may have been installed originally in a back to front way .

I havent got any temperature thermometer thing for the flow side so I am just touching with my fingers until I feel heat coming through.

Thank you.

 

[Mister Banks]

Turn down the radiators that are hottest and then see if the cold radiators start to heat up.

 

[andyr123]

Turn down the radiators that are hottest and then see if the cold radiators start to heat up.

on the cold radiators open up the lockshield more? or close down lockshield more?

 

[Mister Banks]

on the cold radiators open up the lockshield more? or close down lockshield more?

Turn down the hot radiators lockshields slightly.

 

[Notch7]

at the moment I have each lockshield valve turned about 1 full turn from the closed position

you probably need to close down some rads a bit more than that to force the water to flow into the reluctant ones

its surprising how sensitive the lockshield can be on balancing

 

[andyr123]

i'm checking every 10 minutes to see which radiators are the hottest , give them a time to heat up

 

[JohnD]

on the cold radiators open up the lockshield more? or close down lockshield more?

No.

Adjust the hot ones.

 

[Tricky-Dicky]

As JohnD says, adjust the flow to the hot rads. Small rads ie Bathroom, Cloakroom etc will need the lockshield valve opened (from closed position) by a mere fraction, maybe just an 1/8th.