How to Balance Your Heating System, Everything You Need to Know & REDUCE YOUR GAS BILL

Best advise on balancing, I've looked at several. Many thanks

Good vid, thanks. In ductwork systems where you can’t have control dampers, we balance the system by selecting size of pipe and number of bends etc. and calculating pressure drop in each leg but it’s more of a black art with small bore water systems.

Good communication, explaining the variables and use of technical improvements.

I'm a not a gas engineer, just a home owner looking to save a sheckle or two. I did buy a digital thermometer to balance mine as they're not too badly priced now. This is the first video I've seen that doesn't tell you to open all the TRV's and lockshields fully, turn the heating up full and find the order they heat up. Then when the system has cooled set the boiler temp and go round in the order of heating, altering the lockshields as required to get the temp difference.

Thanks for this. Had some building work done and system was never right afterwards. Got it sorted thanks to you👍

Excellent content mate👍

Thanks much appreciated, most of my radiators only have a 2 or 3 degree drop, so going to have a go.

Great information

Really good video. Will Drayton auto balancing valve bodies work with other smart TRV heads, like Hive etc?

Very detailed explanation Mark thanks,but it does seem like balancing is nearly impossible to do,and to achieve it means spending many hours and lots of money on new auto/smart valves, measuring kit etc,plus more gas when testing,the previous videos i have seen all say measure temperature difference across flow and return pipes when system is hot,so bit unsure how it can be done when the system is cold ?,also i have 2 new aluminium middle connection radiators in a recent extension that dont get very warm the heat isnt spread out across the entire radiator it just seems to be hot in the middle and on one side,i have been using a thermal imaging camera to identify the cause ,but not getting very far,I am liaising with the supplier at present but they don't know why,would you have any thoughts Mark.?

Thank you for your help. However, I’m pretty sure I need to replace my 15 year old Vaillant Ecotec 630 system boiler now. What is your recommendation for a new boiler? I heard that Worcester Bosch has the edge over Vaillant? Thank you 😊

Hi regarding the hot water tank what should be the temperature difference flow and return difference, when it's just DHW demand , from cold. I have a system boiler heating a tank indirectly with CH. Thanks

I've just tried balancing my system based on radiator size. The smallest (about 500 watt) radiators had the lock shield on quarter open, the intermediate (about 700W to 1 kW) had it set one turn open, and the largest (1600 watt up to 2200 watt) were left fully open. What do you think of that approach? Seems to work with the large radiators coming on more quickly, but since its August I can't properly test it out. To me it does seem logical to match the flow to the radiators ability to dissipate heat. Background - each radiator is fed by microbore, so the pipework probably limits flow rate.

I’ve followed all your videos on cold radiators - took it off and flushed it, changed the thermostatic valve, then changed the lock shield valve, now I’ve balanced the rads and it’s still the same - hot pipe to the valve but radiator still cold. Any more suggestions?

In Denmark we NEVER do that. We have shunted two-string systems with a cirkulation pump, that lets in new hot water, and lets out used cold water to the boiler. In newer houses, each radiator even has its own circuit. Easy-peasy!

Another good video, Mark what's your opinion on the DANFOSS RAS-B2 trv's, are the better than Drayton TRV4's.

Nice video but am still unsure of when to take the temp. difference i.e. as you state, when the rads warm up then the temp. difference becomes less, just as when starting up the temp difference will be less, So, is the max temp. difference at any particular time the one I should be looking for?

It's difficult to achieve a temperature difference of 12 degrees for a small radiator. Also it helps if no-one is running a bath or shower when balancing the central heating system.

So the way I understand this is: if I have pressure modulating pump I don't need auto balancing valves. Having them installed in the system with pressure modulating pump might create conflict between two as the valves will control pressure(independently)as well. Or, am I missing something?

Hi my boiler shows burner symbol sometimes. Is that good or something is wrong? Thank you.