New build radiator

[chriscross]

We just moved into a new build and noticed a radiator was missing from our living room (shown in orange). The plans state this is required to satisfy 2021 regulations. The developer has acknowledged the fault and has offered two solutions:

Install the radiator as per the plans
Upgrade the window radiator to a double that’s also larger in size

For reference, our living room is approx. 3.39m x 4.95m (11’1” x 16’3”) and doesn't have a window on the external (left) wall as shown.

Option 1 mitigates a potential cold spot, but the door will remain open most of the time, so we’re wondering if this cancels out any gain. This option also creates the most upheaval in terms of construction work.

Option 2 is easier, but I’m questioning whether a single radiator will adequately heat the room, regardless of increased size.

What would be your preference and why? Thanks in advance for your help.

[ericmark]

We are shown this diagram

circulation.jpg (29.06 KiB) Viewed 221 times

and unless a fan assisted radiator we allow on convection to heat the whole room. And we also with two radiators would need in theroy to link the TRV heads, although I haven't done this, so likely one radiator will work well enough.

In the main the problem is balancing the rooms, in my old house it was easy, it was open plan, and one thermostat in the centre of the house, with TRV's to stop upstairs over heating.

Mothers old house had doors on each room, so more of a problem, I used the TRV software

TRV_report.jpg (36.66 KiB) Viewed 221 times

it showed if current exceeds target, so if it did then I closed the lock shield valve a bit, so each room was controlled by the TRV, and on leaving, replaced with wax type, which now the lock shield valves set, worked A1, but to set without having programmable heads one needs a differential thermometer, and one sets the temp drop to around 15°C, but most house holds do not have that tool.

Ideal we don't have a wall thermostat, the TRV heads link to a hub, which in turn tells the boiler to turn up or down, but few have the e-bus control of their boiler, so we look at near enough engineering.

So we often use a wall thermostat to turn the boiler on/off rather than up/down, and often we need to set the TRV and lock shield valve in the room with the thermostat very carefully so they work in harmony and don't fight each other, it can work well, but often doesn't, and we resort to some mid way between to get the home to one heat up reasonably even, and two for a reasonable running cost.

Every time a thermostat switches off and back on again, the boilers modulation adjustment starts again, so we want the boiler when it can to turn up/down, not on/off.

Well actually I don't, my old oil boiler does not modulate (turn down) so it does not matter for me, but most gas boilers are designed to modulate to gain the latent heat from the flue gases, so analogue control of the heating is better than any on/off control.

We also look at recovery time, if you or more to the point, your mobile phones leave the house, the geofencing should turn the heating down, but that means it needs to heat the home fast for your return, I tried the geofencing, and the recovery was too slow, setting up a schedule can improve things, so first kitchen, then dinning room, then living room, and finally bedrooms are heated, but then the size of radiators is rather important, what you want is for a room to be able to use the total output of the boiler, so the boiler is not forced to cycle off/on, in practice this is rare, but there is a reason why the heating and ventilation guy is called an engineer, he needs a university education to work out best options unless using a fully automated system, the more basic the system the harder it is to work out.

I have my central heating split into two major zones, one for the flat under the main house, and one for the main house, and then the main house uses programmable TRV heads so splits the house into a further 9 zones, it is very rare all zones are heated.

[stevei]

I would go for the easiest option, keeping just one radiator. The room isn't that big and one radiator would work as well as two.