Complete central heating system setup - advice please

[phill bri]

Update: For others peoples reference and a reply thats of useful information, most likely the band wagon with useless answers will reply with some more useless answers for people to read.

ALL DONE and working extremely well.

It was easier to look up how to setup the individual items myself, much easier than getting pointless answers on here that are of no help what so ever!

I asked some very straightforward and basic questions here and got no answers to any questions.

For those that want to know how to do this in the future its simple once researched.

Set your boiler stat up (boiler type & install dependent obviously) so that you flow is around 60c (again dependant on your boiler type & size of system).

Ideally you then want after all setup for your return to be around 20c lower than your flow (not always achievable).

Set your pump up around mid point to start with. Later a good test of your pump speed is to set your pump speed to max, run your system upto temperature, set your pump speed to min, turn of your boiler, wait 20 mins, if your rads are still warm after this then leave your pump speed alone, if they have cooled considerably then turn your pump speed up to the next stage and repeat the process until correct, this doesnt always work depending on what type of pump you have.

Work out which order your radiators heat up in with all valves a trvs open. Set your first rad lockshield about 1/4 open as a intial setup, then adjust the lockshields on your various rads so that you have around 9-12c difference from flow to return pipes. You may have to wait a while between adjustments to let pipework to cool to re-check temps. you may also have to keep rechecking your rad balance when you have adjusted other rads. after rads are all balanced adjust your trvs and flow rad valves to the temp you desire in that particular room.

UFH thats connected like a rad with blending valve, adjust this using the flow and return pipes like you would a radiator, as effectivly thats all it is. you will have to use your UFH pump speed to balance this too.

Auto byoass valve, this is actually simple for this system, wind it all the way closed, use the pressure display on your circulation pump as a guide, slowly open your bypass valve untill you see your pump pressure slightly decrease, this means your bypass is just cracked open, adjust to either close it up a bit or open a little more dependant on what type of system you have. Also all boiler manufactures of heat only boiles recommend using a auto bypass valve regardless of a 's' or 'y' plan system and is also part of your building regs.

Also good to go around your system to check for any air, mine had none and has been running for months.

There will be loads of stupid replies to this but for the non experienced plumber it will be useful information and my system is now balanced very well with all rads getting hot together, no cold spots, even heat from ufh, no boiler overheating or excessive cylcing, spot on!

Addiossss, wont be using this forum again.

 

[SimonG]

"I've come for advice that I'm going to ignore"

 

[Ric2013]

Mr Speaker: I'm tempted to draught a sarcastic reply to the Right Honourable gentleman, but quite frankly it's a waste of time, as was the useful information I gave in post 13 which was obviously unappreciated and the discussion between Shaun and myself regarding pump positions.

Might I suggest, as a helpful reply to others that may be reading this in the future, that the mistake the Right Honourable gentleman has made is coming here with what seems like a million questions and expecting them all answered at the same time and then getting offended because industry professionals dare to question the design of the system installed by someone who isn't an industry professional (which is a bit of a weird attitude if we're totally honest):

Where to find pump curves and pump head.
Is a pump over-run required?
Why is the boiler cycling?
Why are TRVs whining?
Is it normal to have hot spots on UFH?

None of these questions are unreasonable (and would have been easier to answer had they been provided in list form in the first place) but there was a lot of information to take in and we needed to understand the bigger picture. Shaun picked up on what would generally be considered an installation fault and, as industry professionals, this house discussed the possible consequences. None of the questions are, however, necessarily straightforward to answer and we'd have needed more information to answer some of them, as the answer might depend on context.

This house was genuinely trying to help, and I outlined the risks (not the certainties) of a pump on return. I've been very busy for the last week and haven't been on this forum and would have been more than happy to continue to assist with the next point as (differently from Shaun) I don't really see the pump on return being a big problem if it's not causing one, even though I personally wouldn't have installed it that way and we could have now moved on to the next point in question. But frankly, if someone is going to come on here for advice and then resort to unfounded aspersions on our professionalism just because this house calls into question what they have themselves done, then (and against my nature which would be to try to help anyway), I'm out. There are other people more deserving of our voluntary work on this forum.

To the Right Honourable gentleman who claims he is never coming on here again, but is probably reading this, perhaps he might want to consider whether replying with:

no, not fool hardy at all, so you dont setup a system after install? not very good practice, there a difference between installing a system and setting it up for best performance! NO air in system hasnt been since install. nothing wrong with pump on return makes no odds.

to my comment:

Exactly. Seems foolhardy to install it first and understand the details after. But each to his own.

Not sure I follow re pump. He's got the pump on the return, and the close coupling is correct IIUC. Surely the risk is negative pressure between the pump and cold feed with increased risk of air ingress (and cavitation at valves?).

is the kind of thing that gets most people's back up and probably best avoided really, though I think that neither myself nor Shaun has any reason to be insecure about the quality of service we provide to our customers and I, for one, really don't care what the opinion is of my professional work coming from someone who has no experience of it.

I stand by the fact that it would have been better to ask the questions first as the installation was obviously carried out after insufficient research (the Right Honourable gentleman still doesn't understand the point I was making about pumping the return). My second point was part of a professional debate with Shaun as to the possible consequences of pump-on-return: we were trying to work out whether there was any point answering the OP's setup questions or whether the problems the OP was experiencing were such that would only be resolved by a system redesign, which we would have probably helped with. Sometimes you can't set up a system for best performance if the design is badly flawed: you can only make the best of a bad job.

May I wish the Right Honourable gentleman all the best with his new system? I hope he has many years of trouble-free service from it and I am pleased to hear he has solved his initial problems.