Mini IR thermometer for balancing radiators

[spyke749]

Hi,

Looking for a decent, and cheap, way of measuring the temp in my rad's for balancing the system.

Has anyone tried this :

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=220790

Or, do you have a recommendation of what to use?

 

[ianniann]

I haven't used that exact model, but it is capable of giving you a temperature on many surfaces accurate to a degree or two either way. The "resolution" is meaningless. It will show you a temperature including tenths of a degree but it is only accurate at best to a degree or so. The specs for this model indicate plus or minus 2C accuracy, worse when it is very cold. Quite poor for an IR thermometer but probably good enough for radiators.

Perhaps the biggest drawback is that it isn't very accurate on metal surfaces, but paint is OK. Even white paint is OK, much better than bare metal. You can put electrical tape on metal surfaces if you need to measure them, but that isn't so great either.

The other drawback of these small models is indicated by the "Field of view" specification. This is the size of the object that is being measured, given as a proportion of the distance you are away from it. At a foot away you are reading the general temperature of an area a foot wide. Better get close! More expensive models have better optics and can read areas a tenth of that size or even smaller.

 

[electronicsuk]

I think your money would be better spent on a pair of clip-on pipe thermometers.

 

[spyke749]

I think your money would be better spent on a pair of clip-on pipe thermometers.

Thought of these, but, all the pipe work is push fit plastic's, and I thought that clip on thermometer's would not work plastic pipes.

Hence, my idea of using an IR type thermometer to measure the temp of the radiator valve / corner of radiator.

 

[ChrisOxford]

Yes, I know this is an ancient thread, but I thought I'd add my experience in case anyone comes across it when Googling (like I did).

I had a cheapie (£30) IR thermometer which I'd bought for work lying around, so thought I'd give it a go after replacing the leaky TRVs and LSVs on my rads. It's similar to Screwfix 44292.

I found it works really well and much more quickly than clip-on thermometers.

The "trick" for me was to use it on the painted copper pipework immediately below the LSV and TRV, to have the front face of the thermomemter actually touching the pipe, and to slowly "scan" the thermometer back and forth across the pipe until the highest reading was displayed. Forget the laser, it's useless in this application!

That way, I got dependable, repeatable readings that corresponded exactly with the clip-on thermometers, but in about 5 seconds as opposed to a few minutes.

Hope that's of some help to another DIYnot DIYer one day.

Chris.