Balancing a system with out gauges

Adam_25

What is the ideal procedure for balancing a system . From doing a accurate heatloss , one should the ball park flow rates required for any given zone in a system . How would go about getting the ideal flow through each zone . Do you get the ideal flow through the boiler ,which would be additive for all the zones , then set up the seperate zones individually . Would pressure guages be more useful than surface mounted thermostats to set up each zone . Just trying to generate some discusion . Thanks for contributing .

Timco

I set the primary loop for the boiler requirements, then set the secondary zones by heat requirements. I balance by using lower speeds and check the rads on the zones one by one, until I know the heat is even and the ret heats reasonably. TV keeps the ret temp happy, and ODR keeps the supply temp where it needs to be.

Tim

Brad White_150

Guages and Thermometers

I use both. The balancing valves I use have T&P (temperature and pressure) ports built-in. These are also known as "Pete's Plugs" and allow a needle guage fitting and a probe type thermometer to be inserted into the water stream.

I use a Dwyer digital pressure guage and the balancing valve circular sliderule to determine flow based on delta-P and valve setting (absent an in-line flow meter).

For temperature, this can corroborate your flow reading and other things but takes more time. The reason is that most systems are rarely steady-state. When up-firing, the delta T will start wide then narrow. DHW does this to illustrate. A good system will respond to the dynamics hence the variables are always changing. Once warmed up though, you can get a relative snapshot of how your system is performing.

I agree with Tim, set up the boiler separately from the emitter circuits.