What do you use for circuit balancing?

Gordan

Scenario: a remote manifold with balancing valves located upstairs, but one or two circuits run into the boiler room.



Would you get a separate manifold with built in balancing valves just to be able to set the flow to those few circuits? ($$)



Are stand-alone balancing valves still widely available? I was only able to find one, from Watts (B55), and only in 3/4" sweat.



Another option would be to use TRV bodies with a manual adjuster cap. That's somewhere in the middle, cost-wise. Or just put in TRVs and allow them to do their thing, but this strikes me as not optimal; the purpose of balancing is precisely to stop one zone or loop from disproportionately affecting others. Is there a way to "bias" TRVs to restrict the max amount of flow they would let through (in essence, "lengthening" the pin so that "fully open" actuator does not equal "fully open" valve)?

hot_rod

a couple options

on the left is a flowsetting valve that is adjustable. Pull the ring to divert the flow and set the rate you need. The fluid never passes through the window so you can always re-adjust and see the flow.



The other is an AutoFlo. You select the flowrate you need, it cannot be field adjusted or changed.



So if you know the flow rate required and it never needs to be changed, the AutoFlo is a good choice. If you want to play around with different flow rates and have adjustability the 132 is the valve to use.



hr

Gordan

Thanks, but...

I'm looking for something simpler: balancing the head loss of the circuits at desired flow, not the flow itself. In other words: exactly what a manifold balancing valve does. The actual flow would vary based on what the TRVs throttle it to, in response to overheating a space, but the balancing valve would set the "ceiling" on the flow and prevent a small zone from stealing all the heat if a window is open or someone turns the dial way up.



I looked up the specs on the Watts HBV and it's just a ball valve with a slotted stem... not impressive. I'd expect anything called a balancing valve to have the innards made for throttling, like the ones on manifolds do.