Home radiators: should I keep one fully open?

[a11y_m]

Our heating system consists of "normal" radiators each with it's own valve, with no central wall-mounted thermostat, i.e. we adjust the valves on each to achieve the desired warmth in each room. There's also 3 towel rails within the system. It's all on a central timer.

The wife says we should keep one of the towel rails fully open - something to do with that being best for the system.

I say that's a load of balls and a waste of energy (super-heating one room).


Please tell me I'm not wrong? Please?!

[ghamer]

It depends whether the system is fitted with a by-pass or not.If it is then yes all valves could be closed.If not then all but one could be closed.To be honest if no bypass is fitted then the fitter should have left one rad with no stat fitted so is permanently open.Its a safety device to protect the heating circuit.So its difficult to answer your question without having a look.I,d either ring those that fitted the system or get it serviced and ask the chap whilst he,s doing it.

[cjs]

Do all the radiators have proper thermostatic valves? These are commonly known as TRVs. If so this is wrong, you need at least one radiator with open standard valves to ensure flow and to allow the system to work. So your wife is right.

You should really have a separate central room thermostat and use that to control the overall temperature, you then use the TRVs to control the temp in individual rooms.

[a11y_m]

Thanks folks.

I've done a bit of online searching since posting initially and now realise what yes, she's right. Dammit.

Moving on, I also now realise my best solution will be adding some sort of room thermostat into the mix. All the radiators have thermostatic valves apart from the 3 towel rails. The system is currently (can't recall make/model) a 7-day electronic timer that controls HW and CH separately. I'll figure it out I hope!