Balancing your radiators ensures that every room in your home is warm and cosy, making your home much more comfortable. This is especially crucial for two-story houses.

With some basic equipment and effort, you can produce a balanced system even without a thermometer. Today, Beesley and Fildes will guide you through the process, helping you achieve an inviting home.

Why Balancing Radiators Is Essential

When your radiators are unbalanced, the boiler runs longer than necessary, wasting energy and increasing your bills.

By ensuring that each radiator heats up at the same rate, you can optimise the performance of your heating system, making it more energy-efficient and reducing your carbon footprint.

This can also help you extend the life of your boiler and avoid costly repairs.

What You’ll Need

Radiator key
Adjustable spanner
Screwdriver

A Step-by-Step Guide to Balancing Without a Thermometer

Step 1: Turn off the heating

Before you begin, turn off all radiators to allow the system to cool down.

This will allow you to accurately adjust the radiator valve and avoid the risk of burns.

Step 2: Open all radiator valves

Once your radiator has had time to fully cool down, it's time to open the radiator valves.

This will reset the flow of water throughout your heating systems, removing any previous imbalances or adjustments.

To open the lockshield valve located at the bottom of your radiator, remove the plastic cap with a screwdriver. Then, use an adjustable spanner to turn the metal valve underneath clockwise.

On the opposite side of the radiator, you’ll find the manual control or ‘wheel head’ valve. Turn this anti-clockwise with your hand until it completely opens. If your radiators are equipped with TRVs, ensure they are set to the maximum setting, typically marked as “5” or “MAX.”

Step 3: Identify the heating order

The order in which your radiators heat up reflects how hot water is distributed from the boiler through your home.

Rapidly heating radiators are probably receiving more hot water than necessary; thus, their valves must be partially closed to lower the flow. On the other hand, the valves on radiators that heat up more slowly might need to be opened farther to let in more water.

To identify this order, turn the central heating back on after opening the valves. When the heating kicks on, walk around your house to check each radiator.

Feel the top and bottom of each radiator to determine its heating rate. Note how fast each one heats up. Radiators closer to the boiler will typically heat up first.

Step 4: Adjust the fastest heating radiator

The fastest heating radiator receives more heat than others, causing some rooms to overheat while others stay cold.

To adjust your radiator, turn off the central heating and allow the system to cool. Then, use an adjustable spanner to close the radiator's lockshield valve, turning it clockwise.

After closing this valve, reopen it slightly to restrict the hot water flow. Turn the lockshield valve anti-clockwise by a quarter turn.

Then, restart the heating and let the radiator warm up. Feel along the radiator to determine the temperature distribution. Ideally, the radiator should warm up evenly from top to bottom and side to side without any cold spots.

Step 6: Repeat the process

Repeat this process for each radiator.

If the top of the radiator is hotter than the bottom, it could indicate that the valve needs to be opened slightly more to increase the flow of hot water.

If the radiator feels uniformly hot but heats up too quickly compared to others, you may need to close the valve slightly to restrict the flow.