Identifying radiators order from boiler

[AndyJ]

Second post for the night - hope there's no limit on the amount of knowledge I can suck from you guys (and gals!).

I need to re balance our radiators, as we have two rads in the living/dining room that do not work, yet all other rads do.

I've read guide after guide about how to balance, but they all assume one thing - that you know the order in which your rads heat up and consequently the furthermost from the boiler. How do you find this out?

Running around the house checking temps seems illogical - as there's no guarantee that the rad's will heat up, or a rad that's closest to the boiler would heat up any quicker than one next in the path (not enough for a human to notice the difference in time to heat up I guess).

There must be a simple way of working this out, no ?

 

[Slugbabydotcom]

TRVs can stick in the closed position so watch out for that one.

Close all the other rads off and all the energy from the pump will push towards rads where the pipes are airlocked /blocked with sludge.

Try disconnecting the rads and flushing water from each valve on affected rads. Use this method to detect a blocked manifold, valve or pipe.

Many on here like to go to the finer end of a fart running around with thermometers to perfectly balance a system and while this may be necessary on larger systems I usually find that rads either give out enough heat or they dont. Most plumbers can get a system balanced well enough just by feeling them and reducing the flow to those hottest and nearest the boiler. Someone posted the 'perfect balancing procedure' recently so you could look it up if you wanted.

Where combi's are fitted I have came across a glut of systems lately where the return filter was found to be blocked. I know it can be a faff on checking this but as I am finding its better to check it before replacing a suspected failing pump.

 

[kevplumb]

err mushafa lob an e mail in my direction

 

[bengasman]

Only on single pipe systems could it be of importance to start with the first rad nearest the boiler. Almost all systems are flow and return these days in which case it is pretty irrelevant where you start. 5 will get you 10 that you have a blockage.
Turn all other rads off, and see what the difference is between in and out or the problem cases