Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.

Understanding TRV on hot water system--need bypass valves for each element?

I've been searching the site and the web in general and I'm fuzzy on the implementation of TRVs on a hot water system. We're in the midst of a conversation to a hot water system, ideally with TRVs and an outdoor reset but I'm unclear whether we'd need to have a bypass at each heating element or if that's insane.
My assumption is that if you have a heating loop of say three rads and have a TRV at the first rad, aren't you logically restricting flow to the entire system and thus temperature? So if room one is too hot, but rooms two and three are just right, by reducing hot water flow to the first rad I'm reducing it to the entire system and so those rooms will now be cold, no? I've seen suggestions about leaving the least important or last unit in a loop without a TRV which I get in terms of not risking fully stopping flow and killing a circulator, but I don't see how a throttle at any point in a system doesn't' automatically throttle the rest of the downstream rads in a system, and so assume you'd want to have a bypass piped in at each radiator.
Can someone set me straight on how such a system is intended to work?
Thx
J

Comments

  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    If you have a one-pipe system, where water flows from one radiator into the next and the next, you'll need a bypass around each of the radiator elements so that when any of the TRVs throttle on room temperature, the water will have a way around the closing valve.

    If the system is two pipe, where the radiators are like rung on a ladder, there's no need for the bypass.

    Make sense?
    Retired and loving it.
  • Don_197
    Don_197 Member Posts: 184
    that is awesome.......I have never seen the conversion valves before 8-)

    Don
  • modconwannabe
    modconwannabe Member Posts: 49
    Much appreciated--I thought one pipe systems were only for steam! And the attachment is eye-opening as well.
  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Member Posts: 22,021
    There are also H valves with an adjustable bypass built in. Typically factory set at 65% bypass. These are often used on panel rads when piped in series

    Some clever innovation in TRVs, Caleffi introduced a wifi TRV valve in the European market based on Enocean protocol
    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream