Radiators, thetmostats and trv's

[GraemeVW]

Before I do anything silly, I thought I'd ask here, see if what I plan is ok.

Normal 3 bed semi. Ancient, but working, boiler (not combi) 3 rads and a towel rail upstairs, 3 rads downstairs.

All works ok, maybe a bit noisy. I 're ran most of the copper 12 years ago to get it under the floors.

I have a multi fuel stove in the living room. Problem is, the thermostat is in the hall. So the living room is toasty, stat clicks off, upstairs is cold. Don't want to just max the stat out as I would be forever changing temp as the fire isn't on every day.

Plan was to move the stat to the landing. Then I figured I'd put trv's on the downstairs radiators.

Sound ok? Just had a nagging feeling it might not be ok to just shut off the downstairs roads if the system hadn't been designed with that in mind.

I don't immediately see any benefit to putting trv's upstairs too, am I wrong?

Thanks.

 

[brightspark]

stats no use on the landing all the heat goes up there and it will switch off leaving downstairs cold wants to be in a downstairs room where there is a radiator and preferably no draughts to keep a stable temperature. all thermostatics apart from 3 on all my rads

 

[voipio]

There should always be one radiator that is kept open, or it could be the towel rail, so that if all the other TRVs close because the rooms are up to temperature, the boiler's output still has somewhere to go, if there is still demand from the thermostat.

 

[GraemeVW]

stats no use on the landing all the heat goes up there and it will switch off leaving downstairs cold wants to be in a downstairs room where there is a radiator and preferably no draughts to keep a stable temperature. all thermostatics apart from 3 on all my rads

Yeah, I get I'd be just turning the problem upside down.
But with the stat downstairs in the hall, I can't use the log burner and heat upstairs with the rads at the same time.

Not sure what the solution is. Trv's on all rads set to say 20°, then set the thermostat higher so the heat from the log burner doesn't turn the heating off?

 

[GraemeVW]

There should always be one radiator that is kept open, or it could be the towel rail, so that if all the other TRVs close because the rooms are up to temperature, the boiler's output still has somewhere to go, if there is still demand from the thermostat.

If I just had the towel rail without a trv, had all room trv's set to 20, but thermostat set to 30 so the log burner doesn't turn it off, would that be ok? Seems to me like the central heating would be just over heating the bathroom and would run constantly.

I'd like to somehow keep the upstairs at say 18° and use the log burner to keep the living room around 25°.

 

[voipio]

25° will have you sitting in your underpants!! The above setup will work. Putting a towel over the towel rail will reduce the amount of heat going into the bathroom.

We let the hall thermostat turn off when our log burner gets going, and only crank the thermostat setting up a bit if more heat is needed from the boiler. There's usually enough heat given off by the log burner to heat the whole place, so all the internal doors get opened, when it's running. On TRVs generally, the middle setting seems to be around 20° (usually the 3 or III settting).

 

[knighty]

What kind of thermostat? Simple on off?

Why not fit 2 in parallel?

Thst way if the both say its hot enough heating will turn off
If any one of them calls for heat the heating will run

 

[jo1010]

All rads on TRVs. Remove room stat. But put automatic bypass valve in system to cope with pump overrun situations.

 

[GraemeVW]

What kind of thermostat? Simple on off?

Why not fit 2 in parallel?

Thst way if the both say its hot enough heating will turn off
If any one of them calls for heat the heating will run

2 thermostats is an interesting idea.
Current stat is just a dial, typical 90s one.

 

[GraemeVW]

All rads on TRVs. Remove room stat. But put automatic bypass valve in system to cope with pump overrun situations.

Sounds like a proper solution, but I'd probably get a plumber to do that. Sounds a bit out of my range of experience.

 

[rtcosic]

You could fit a wireless thermostat and move it from room to room to find the best location for it before fitting TRVs to the 'hottest' rooms.

In our previous house, SWMBO learned to carry it with her into whichever room she was in. That was fine until she took it into the kitchen during a major baking session. Everywhere else was freezing!

We have a problem with the upstairs zone as the plumbers fitted the controlling thermostat in the master bedroom. It's south-facing and the thermostat faces the window, getting direct sunlight for added amusement!

Moving it is on the To Do list. I'll probably get to it in the next millennium.

 

[GraemeVW]

You could fit a wireless thermostat and move it from room to room to find the best location for it before fitting TRVs to the 'hottest' rooms.

In our previous house, SWMBO learned to carry it with her into whichever room she was in. That was fine until she took it into the kitchen during a major baking session. Everywhere else was freezing!

We have a problem with the upstairs zone as the plumbers fitted the controlling thermostat in the master bedroom. It's south-facing and the thermostat faces the window, getting direct sunlight for added amusement!

Moving it is on the To Do list. I'll probably get to it in the next millennium.

I've been meaning to sort this issue since 2014!

 

[DanZac]

I've been meaning to sort this issue since 2014!

Dont rush, itll be summer again in a couple of months and then you won't need the heating.