Upstairs radiators not heating

oceanclub

The heating in our house was totally overhauled last years; upstairs and downstairs heating are controlled separately (You can see some photos of the tank and plumbing in this thread: https://www.boards.ie/b/thread/2057808573#105258856) . The radiators downstairs are brand new, the ones upstairs were reused (not very old models).
Downstairs is fine but can't get the temperate high upstairs; the rads are often lukewarm (in middle of period when upstairs heating is on from 6pm to midnight) and room temperature can't go over 15c (thermostat is set to 20).
Tried bleeding the radiators, a small amount of air but nothing that would affect it.
If anyone has any hints or a checklist I should go through would appreciate it.)
P

jon1981

oceanclub wrote: »

The heating in our house was totally overhauled last years; upstairs and downstairs heating are controlled separately (You can see some photos of the tank and plumbing in this thread: https://www.boards.ie/b/thread/2057808573#105258856) . The radiators downstairs are brand new, the ones upstairs were reused (not very old models).
Downstairs is fine but can't get the temperate high upstairs; the rads are often lukewarm (in middle of period when upstairs heating is on from 6pm to midnight) and room temperature can't go over 15c (thermostat is set to 20).
Tried bleeding the radiators, a small amount of air but nothing that would affect it.
If anyone has any hints or a checklist I should go through would appreciate it.)
P

I have similar issues with rads reaching varied degrees of warmth ranging from really hot to luke warm. i've tried balancing the radiators, which any competent DIYer can do and didn't get much success. I'm currently looking at getting the system power flushed as the system is about 8 yrs old at this stage. It's expensive but I can't think of what else to do, the boiler was serviced and is fine.

oceanclub

jon1981 wrote: »

oceanclub wrote: »

The heating in our house was totally overhauled last years; upstairs and downstairs heating are controlled separately (You can see some photos of the tank and plumbing in this thread: https://www.boards.ie/b/thread/2057808573#105258856) . The radiators downstairs are brand new, the ones upstairs were reused (not very old models).
Downstairs is fine but can't get the temperate high upstairs; the rads are often lukewarm (in middle of period when upstairs heating is on from 6pm to midnight) and room temperature can't go over 15c (thermostat is set to 20).
Tried bleeding the radiators, a small amount of air but nothing that would affect it.
If anyone has any hints or a checklist I should go through would appreciate it.)
P

I have similar issues with rads reaching varied degrees of warmth ranging from really hot to luke warm. i've tried balancing the radiators, which any competent DIYer can do and didn't get much success. I'm currently looking at getting the system power flushed as the system is about 8 yrs old at this stage. It's expensive but I can't think of what else to do, the boiler was serviced and is fine.

Our system is totally new (all new piping only last year, house was gutted) so can't imagine that is the problem. On "balancing", is there a dummies guide to this?  

P.

jon1981

oceanclub wrote: »

Our system is totally new (all new piping only last year, house was gutted) so can't imagine that is the problem. On "balancing", is there a dummies guide to this?  

P.

I followed this guide
http://www.bestheating.com/info/blog/a-best-heating-guide-how-to-balance-radiators/

It can be time consuming. Given the system is new it's possible the balancing was never done correctly. No harm in trying it out, can't make it any worse!

oceanclub

Have done a bit of reading - the radiators upstairs have thermostatic valves (TRVs). The system also has an upstairs thermostat. The upstairs radiators are from before the thermostat being installed.
According to this: http://www.homexpertbyhoneywell.com/en-GB/Products/TRV/Pages/default.aspx

"The radiator in the room with the room with the room thermostat should not normally have a TRV, but if it does, keep the TRV on the maximum setting and adjust the room thermostat as explained with the instructions"

OK so my TRV is on full but could it be still interfering?
I presume the lockshield valve (to perform balancing) is the one on the other end of the radiator from the TRV?

P

oceanclub

For anyone with the same problem, it turned out the fix was simply - a curtain was blocking the air current to the thermostatic valve on the rad. Since the temperature of the rads are controlled by an on-wall thermostat now, the plumber simply loosened the thermostatic valve so it no longer functions.