Too warm!

Mike Wright

To John@reliable and MikeT@swampeast MO

The 2nd floor radiators always feel warm (they're radiating like crazy, in fact) The house isn't well-insulated, but there's a full 3rd floor which has no radiators, but does have gravity vents in several spots. Flow-check valve sounds like a possibility. Hmmmm. Thanks!

Mike Wright

Too warm upstairs

I'm new to living with hot water heat and this may be a basic question, but: why, with the thermostat set to 58F at night (and I've verified that the room with the thermo. is staying at about that temp) on the second floor are we roasting? The first floor remains cool. We have a 60-ish year old Homart boiler and the original 1890s plumbing & radiators. Boiler has recently been serviced and partly replumbed.

Thanks,

Mike

John@Reliable_13

Mmmmm............

Was it o.k. before repiping? Could be a flo-check was removed or after draining down and refilled flo-check is stuck open maybe.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Do the upstairs radiators get cold overnight when you've set back the thermostat?

If not, you're probably getting unwanted gravity circulation. Boilers of your vintage generally held quite a bit of water and are set up to keep themselves constantly hot with the thermostat controlling only the circulator.

Given the age of your system it almost certainly worked originally under gravity circulation alone. While conversion to forced flow will impede gravity circulation it often won't stop it completely. The forces to allow gravity circulation build the higher you go in the system so there can be enough motive power left to keep some gravity circulation to the upper floor radiators. A relatively simple solution to this problem is a "flow-check" valve to prevent circulation unless the circulator itself is running.

If ceiling/roof insulation has been added to your house since it was built, this too can cause balance problems. Since the upper floor is now loosing less heat, the radiators become, in effect, oversized and tend to overheat the upper floor relative to floor(s) below. Thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) are probably the most effective (and comfortable) solution to this problem.

John Ketterman

We had the same problem in the house we bought 3 years ago. Heat rises, whether hot air or hot water. I don't know if it was insulation or ghost flow, but the problem was nicely solved by replacing the radiator valves with thermostatic valves (TRVs). This also gives you room-by-room control.

Did you tun all upstairs valves off? (assuming they do go off...old valves often stick). If the radiators get cold then the valve did close. If now the upstairs is cool or at least not as hot at night, then clearly turning the radiators off helps. The TRVs will automate this on/off process and make sure the rooms never get too cold.

If the valves don't close, well, then you need new valves! So you might as well get TRVs. The main cost is labor, so not much difference between manual valves and TRVs.

If you cannot do it yourself, getting TRVs is not cheap: several hundred dollars per TRV (less if you do more than one at the same time because the boiler has to be drained only once). But for us it was worth it because it was so miserable upstairs. The sellers had lived with it for 15+ years...maybe they just left windows open! I subsequently did the downstairs valves myself.

Mike Wright

Thermostatic valves

These might also be a cure. I know two radiators don't seem to turn off but others do so I'll play with them and see. Thanks!

John Ketterman