scrubbedexpat056

Our house came with working gas fired central heating, which had been serviced every year, so far so good, but it's an odd system and I was wondering if it's normal here in France. There are no thermostatic valves on the rads and no room thermostat. Where in the UK we would have one standard valve and one thermostatic valve per rad, mine just has one standard valve and nothing on the other. This means it's impossible to balance the system and the temperature is simply set at the boiler. Also I can't find a drain point. Is mine just a poor system or is this normal in people's experiences?

Chatter Static

It's normal for the 70's and 80's here, our system lacked all of the above we had it upgraded.

Adding a wall thermostat is not hard and if you pick the right one from the offset then it will work with the NEST intelligent system which is all the rage.

scrubbedexpat056

I suspected that was the case. I think the boiler is only four or fiver years old, but the rads and plumbing are older. Yes I'll upgrade while I'm at it. The bigger problem is the lack of a drain point to attach a hose to. Draining the system is going to be fun.

Chatter Static

The older systems here tend to have steel pipes on the main loop because in the 70's and 80's copper was expensive which is also why BT stuck loads of Aluminium wire into their network which is now the bane of most engineers life.

One thing I do admire about French plumbing when done by professionals is not using fittings to join pipes or bend them, they will always bend it or join it themselves .

scrubbedexpat056

Interesting point about steel pipes. Mine are all painted and I just assumed they were copper. I'll scratch through the paint before a cut them, though I assume from what you are saying the tails to the rads will still be in copper. I'm going to be moving one of the rads and don't fancy trying steel to copper connections. I agree on the pipe bending. I've always done as many bends as possible to reduce joints. Whether it's worth buying one will depend on the price.

south_bound

Ours came with normal valves incoming at the top of radiators, with another type of valve at the bottom outgoing side which is used to balance the system - you have to unscrew the cap and adjust with an allan key. The problem with the old ones is that they leak as soon as you turn them and have to use PTFE to seal them back up. I have since replaced the incoming with thermostatics on most of them for better control. By coincidence I am having a new condensing gas boiler installed today, the old one was there 20 years and was giving up the ghost. Keep in mind there are still tax credits available this year if installing energy efficient improvements such as insulation, windows, gas boilers and solar hot water systems.

scrubbedexpat056

Thanks south bound, I haven't even looked at the fittings yet and didn't know about the allen key valves behind the covers. It makes sense. The fact that the rads have been badly painted have stopped me from mucking about with them until I needed to to move one of the rads. One other thing is that the rad key I bought in the brico doesn't fit the rads. It's identical in size to the UK ones, but my rads have a smaller, square boss. I didn't notice 2 different sizes in the brico. Any ideas?

south_bound

Not sure what you mean by "rad key". If you mean the key to operate the bleed valve to get air out, then our system has at least 3 different types, some opened by hand, some with a screw driver and some with a special tool that comes with the radiator or towel rail - and I'm sure many others exist as well. If you mean to undo the pipe fittings then I tend to use an adjustable wrench which fits all sizes.

scrubbedexpat056

I meant the standard bleed key. I've got all the tools from my old workshop so I'm sure I can come up with something.

Tweedpipe

If as you say your rads have a smaller, square boss, perhaps you were using a 5mm instead of a 4mm. These appear to be the more common sizes, although there are a few more. A multifunction key could be useful. I note there's also a 10 in 1 key.
Check out HERE & HERE.

scrubbedexpat056

How can you govern a country that has ten different bleed nipples?

Tweedpipe

With difficulty.

grannybunz

Quite right too !!

What's central heating? Snug and warm with our woodburner with outlets into the rooms above it (2) and the electric storage heaters in the rooms we use regularly to top up on cheap rate..