No lockshield valve on radiators?

robocode

Hi, I just moved into a new place (new for me, it's actually pretty old) and turned the heating on for the first time yesterday. I noticed that unlike my last place the two valves on each radiator are identical, i.e. turn this way to open, this way to close. I turned both (on all of them) fully open to heat the place and thought nothing of it but now I'm thinking have I done something wrong? The radiators in my last house clearly had one knob for opening and closing to adjust the heat and the other knob was very obviously different (and was never touched by me).

K.Flyer

If you have opened all of the valves and all the radiators are heating up at roughly the same rate and after approx half an hour they are all similar temperatures then you will not have done too much wrong.
The locksheld is for balancing or fine tuning your heating system.
If you find some rads not heating properly then you will most likely need to have the system balanced again.

robocode

The problem is both valves have the same style knob so I can't figure out which one is for the balancing

Pete67

Best practice is to have the balancing valve on the return. You can determine which side is the flow by seeing which side heats up first, and use the other (return) side as the balancing valve.