Balancing radiators before installing TADO kit

Cecil

Dear All ,

Until my recent research I wasn't aware of TRV's, Lock shield and the regular radiator valves. Now that I have this info at hand , am at a stage where in I have queries around balancing out my radiators so I have all radiators getting the right amount of hot water they need and not being deprived of it , thereby making them efficient before I install the TADO kit that I have just ordered.

What I have observed is that my radiator setup doesn't have any lock shield valves on them but rather are having the regular valves on them which means that I may have ended up playing around with them not understanding what they did and how many turns I needed to maintain whether it may be the inlet valve or the outlet valve. I may have locked and unlocked the valves in the bargain is what I am trying to express.

PS: I am not aware of which radiator is first/second or the last for that matter in the chain whether its upstairs or downstairs.

I have a multizone system (Upstairs and downstairs) connected to a COMBI boiler

Setup looks like this :

Upstairs : 

-5 radiators in total

-4 of them have a manual TRV at 1 end with a regular radiator valve at the other.

-1 of them has regular radiator valves at both ends , this is the radiator that has the wired thermostat mounted next to it.

Downstairs : (same as upstairs)

-5 radiators in total

-4 of them have a manual TRV at 1 end with a regular radiator valve at the other.

-1 of them has regular radiator valves at both ends , this is the radiator that has the wired thermostat mounted next to it.

Now that I know how the system works post review of many youtube videos, Tado community members as well as various other websites I have now ordered the TADO smart TRV's as well the TADO smart thermostats as part of my next project.

The question is :

Do I need to balance the current system in any way before I replace the manual TRV's with TADO smart TRV's or Shall I open up all the existing regular valves fully (as I cant recollect how many turns they were set to in the first place whilst I was playing around) and let the TADO TRV's and the TADO Thermostats take care of efficiently heating up individual rooms?

Cecil

4 radiators on each floor has the above on 1 end.

4 radiators on each floor has the above manual TRV on the other end.

The 2 radiators ( 1 on each floor) that have the Wired Thermostats next to them has the above on both ends.

Hope this helps.

johnnyp78

Have you looked at what you’ve posted? Those are lock shield valves, it even says it in the description.

I would let Tado do the work as you’ve already altered the balance anyway. Open the lock shield valves fully then close them off about a quarter turn and see how your house is heating. If you’ve got a condensing boiler turn it down to a reasonable level - 55c or lower.

If Tado is overshooting massively in any room you can then close the lock shield further. It it’s not reaching target temp you can open the lock shield fully and turn up the boiler temp (but you probably won’t need to do this).

Cecil

@johnnyp78 My understanding of a lock shield was in regards to the plastic cap that covers the valve to ensure that I don't accidentally change the setting once it was adjusted but apparently my understanding is in-correct as the one's installed turn the valve off and on when rotated clockwise/anticlockwise.

I actually thought its a dummy cap that revolves doing nothing and had to be pulled out to make adjustments based on a you tube video I had watched... pardon my ignorance.

Its only when I searched for the particular model I have did I realise the error on my part and pasted the pictures as a second post to avoid further confusion.

I totally appreciate the time taken to provide your valuable feedback to my queries 👍️

johnnyp78

Most lock shields do have a dummy cap to prevent interference - but some don’t as you’ve found out. Like I said, shouldn’t make an awful lot of difference if you have smart trvs anyway.