Heating problem?

iregk

Right this is a strange one. Newish house, 2 year old. Problem is the house never seems to get hot! Now at the moment its ice cold outside and our heating has been on for 4 hours and the house is still cold. I have gone around the house and blocked up as many draft areas as I can find. The thermo is at 30 and its gas heating. The rads are hot but I wouldn't say burning the hand off you. Is our house just insulated to a poor standard or could there be a problem with the heating system.

A friends house a year older built by the same company, smaller house mind you doesn't have this problem. They put their heating on a boost every now and again as it gets too warm. Our gas bills are huge as its on quite a bit but again, the house only ever seems to get mildly warm at best!

Any ideas? Please keep in mind that I'm not a plumber or anything to do with houses so if you say check <insert name> valve I wont have a clue what your talking about unless you guide me.

JamesM

iregk wrote:

Right this is a strange one. Newish house, 2 year old. Problem is the house never seems to get hot! Now at the moment its ice cold outside and our heating has been on for 4 hours and the house is still cold. I have gone around the house and blocked up as many draft areas as I can find. The thermo is at 30 and its gas heating. The rads are hot but I wouldn't say burning the hand off you. Is our house just insulated to a poor standard or could there be a problem with the heating system.

A friends house a year older built by the same company, smaller house mind you doesn't have this problem. They put their heating on a boost every now and again as it gets too warm. Our gas bills are huge as its on quite a bit but again, the house only ever seems to get mildly warm at best!

Any ideas? Please keep in mind that I'm not a plumber or anything to do with houses so if you say check <insert name> valve I wont have a clue what your talking about unless you guide me.

Is there a thermostat of some kind on the gas boiler - you should be able to get the rads hot enough that you can't keep your hand on them. If they are getting that hot, then the problem is not in the heating system, unless the rads are not large enough for the rooms - that's back to the builder, or whoever designed the system.
Jim.

Vmaxer

JamesM wrote:

Is there a thermostat of some kind on the gas boiler - you should be able to get the rads hot enough that you can't keep your hand on them. If they are getting that hot, then the problem is not in the heating system, unless the rads are not large enough for the rooms - that's back to the builder, or whoever designed the system.
Jim.

I'd say that the therostat on the boiler needs to be turned up a knotch alright, there should be a magnetic panel that flips down on the bottom of the boiler with a knob with say 1-6 on it try turning it up slightly...

crosstownk

I'd like to see a couple of photos of what the OP refers to. I'm not clear on the descriptin provided above - apart from the fact that his house is cold!!

iregk

Ok, I found this pic on my machine. Its from what I can remember an ariston boiler. It has a moveable thermo that goes to 6. up to 5 is fine but to get to 6 you have to unlock the blue catch with a screw driver first. at present its set to 5. There is also what appears to be a button with a rad beside it and a reset button.

Would it be worth getting it serviced and just asking that chap to give the system a once over and make sure its all working, balanced (whatever that means) and that kind of stuff.

Thanks for the help lads. Appreciate it and sorry if I'm not clear about certain things I just dont know that much about them.

JamesM

iregk wrote:

Would it be worth getting it serviced and just asking that chap to give the system a once over and make sure its all working, balanced (whatever that means) and that kind of stuff.

Gas boilers should be regularly serviced anyway for safety reasons. An expert in your own house can tell you a lot more than us lot trying to guess
Jim.

antoinolachtnai

Just a note regarding turning up the stat on the boiler.

Do not do this unless you know what you are doing, particularly on a diesel/oil boiler. If you turn it too high, you will damage the burner, which will eventually cost you a couple of hundred euros to replace.

This shouldn't happen so easy with a gas boiler, but still go easy on twisting knobs if you don't know what you're doing.

You really need to tell us more about what happens when the heating goes on (do the radiators heat, and how hot, does the hot water heat, and so on to have any idea what the problem is.

delly

As JamesM says, you should get the boiler serviced anyhow and see if there are any problems with it.

tbh there are a lot of factors that can effect the ability of your house heating up and on the coldest days my system feels the strain as well. My other half gets sick of me changing settings or turning rads off here and there to see what effect it has.

How the house is built and insulation can have an effect, but judging by what you say about the rads not being too hot to touch, i think your problem is with the system. Heating works on measurements called BTU's which is a rating of how hot things get. For example a big radiator might have a BTU rating of 8,000 where a smaller one might be 4,000 (every rad will be different). Now when a room is measured up, along with other factors such as what direction it faces and if it has double glazing, a BTU rating is given for the room, or rather how many BTU's it will take to heat the room up. So if you had a room with a rating of 7,000 BTU's and put a rad in with a heat output of 6,000 BTU's then its not going to do the job.

Another factor would be the BTU rating of your gas boiler. As an example my boiler is a Potterton Suprima 70 and has a BTU output of 70,000. My radiators have an overall output of 55,000 and I think you have to allow another 5,000 or so for the hot water tank. If your boiler can't fill the requirment of all your rads at the same time then they won't heat to there full capacity.

There are plenty of other factors that can effect it as well such as your water pump being set too slow, airlocks in the rads and balancing does have a part to play as well. This just means that the rads nearest the boiler are not turned on as much to take into account being so near to it.

I'm sure JamesM will correct any mistakes I have made here , as I'm just a DIYer and I know how annoying it can be to get your heating up to spec. I had my own boiler set to max today and it did take quiet a while for the house to heat up, I'm just lucky I have a gas fire to aid the process .

iregk

Cheers folks. I guess its a bit too my car is making a noise can you help me!!! I am getting in a guy to service it anyway as its due so I will ask him to give it a once over and see if there is a problem.

crosstownk

Can you see a pressure guage anywhere? It could be possible that there is a small leak somewhere and as a result you now have insufficient water circulating in the system. If you locate the guage make sure that when the system is cold it reads approx 1 bar. If it's anywhere near zero then that might explain things.

Nick Lawson

What happens if your radiators are hot to touch, the house is new, the cavities have been filled and an engineer has said the rads are the correct size but the house only gets warm at best, like the OP's? Also, very soon after the rads. are turned off, the house is cold again.

crosstownk

Complicated. But you must first ensure that the boiler is adequate for the task of heating your house and is operating correctly. Check all controls (stats, timers, motorised valves, etc). And then confirm that the rads are adequate size for the relevant rooms. Next ensure your house is insulated correctly. Identify the culprit and repair as necessary.............. Not as simple as it sounds, mind.