Talk:Hydronic balancing

Quality of article
The article needs to be rewritten in better quality. I might get back to this at some point when I have time but for now I'll list some pointers to get started (sorry, no sourcing).


 * The power emitted by a radiator depends on how large part of its area is hot. This is controlled by adjusting the flow. Once the bottom of the radiator is also about as hot as the top, increasing the flow does not help but will only unbalance the system.
 * It is much easier to balance a system that uses radiator valves to limit water flows so that radiators only emit the power required and no more.
 * The supply water temperature may be adjusted so that for any outdoor temperature there is just enough heating power available.
 * Thermostats can limit the amount of heating power, so with thermostats removed each radiator should emit a bit more heat than what is necessary, and most importantly the temperatures should still stay balanced and the return water on every radiator should be quite cool.
 * Circulation pumps are nearly always over-sized and should be set to their lowest power settings.
 * Line valves may be required in larger systems to make sure that each line gets an equal share of the water. The furthest-away line does not need a line valve or should have its valve fully open. The pressure difference between supply and return pipes should be measured and adjusted to 10 kPa, which is optimal for radiator valves (avoids noise problems that occur with higher delta p). Note: flow or pressure over the valve does not need to be calculated nor measured.

The larger the system, the harder it gets to make it work by trial and error. This is why specialized engineering software exists for designing and balancing heating systems properly. However, today's radiator valves and thermostats are so good that even heavily unbalanced systems may work sufficiently well. Most engineering companies rely on this rather than doing proper calculations. The results may vary.

Heat pumps and floor heating are a completely different animal:


 * Heat pumps (geothermal or air-to-water) are inefficient with high supply water temperatures. Usually floor heating is preferred with such systems instead of wall radiators because it works well with lower water temperatures.
 * A floor heating circuit should have a high-enough flow to evenly heat up the entire floor.
 * Thermostats don't work properly with floor heating. The floor responds slowly to changes, causing temperatures to overshoot. Also, uneven floor temperatures occur when the flow is restricted.
 * A mixing shunt circuit for each separate area of floor heating would be optimal because the heating power is controlled by supply water temperature.

- Tronic2 (talk) 11:33, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 17 February 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Reify-tech makes a good argument that has not been countered. Jenks24 (talk) 05:06, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Hydronic balancing → Hydraulic balancing – Hydronic balancing does not exist. You can perform hydraulic balancing on any hydronic heating/ cooling system as an act of optimizing the pressure of the closed system so energy is exposed to the surface at maximum efficiency. Thenaturalist (talk) 14:08, 17 February 2017 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 06:47, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I don't have a dogmatic position on this, but I will point out that Googling "hydronic balancing" gets 228,000 hits, whereas "hydraulic balancing" gets 597,000 hits. The claim that "Hydronic balancing does not exist" is not credible in the face of existing usage. I suggest that they may be approximate synonyms, or there may be a more subtle difference in meaning. WP:RS should be found for both terms, to help clarify this.
 * Rather than expending effort on arguing about widely-used terminology, any knowledgeable editors would be more appreciated if they could improve the content of the article, which is still badly in need of work as described in the article header and here on the Talk page. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 20:54, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose – I have decided to oppose this proposed move, per WP:PRECISION. The term "hydraulic balancing is more ambiguous, since it could also be applied to plumbing, irrigation systems, or hydraulic machinery, for example. The term "hydronic balancing" clearly is connected to hydronic heating systems, and is demonstrably widely used to mean this, and only this. Not incidentally, the content of this article needs major improvement. Reify-tech (talk) 16:38, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.