Today continued working on what I was doing yesterday. I thought I had it all done then worked out it was all going wrong as it used a load of spline code that I hand’t converted at all.

Went running, it’s now all beginning to defrost, hopefully that’s the last of the snow.

So in the afternoon, in between spline code, or should it be spline code in between everything else….I knocked all the valves off the radiators, opened up all the lock shields, turned the water heating off and then measured everything using the laser gun. I have a feeling the dual probe may not be as accurate as I thought, plus the laser is giving me very consistent results. So I measured everything cold, then let it heat up for half hour then measured it again. This time I was more interested in the flow temperature at each rad. So I made up a table with each rad and wrote down the flow (and return for reference). Initially I had 77 in the bath room down to 72 in the lounge, so only 5 degrees drop. The flow return was more interesting, only 4 degrees across the smallest rads but the dining room and the lounge were showing 21 degrees. So working on the new theory for each degree of difference I tightened up the lock shield by 1/4 turn. I then left it for twenty minutes then measured it all again. So on the second attempt there was still 4 degrees difference, but at least it had dropped by 1. Also the flow / return max drop had gone to 20 degrees. So now round two. Got down to 2 degrees difference and 17 degrees max flow return drop. Round three was 3 degrees and 15 degrees drop. Round 4 was back to 2 degrees and 14 degree drop. I think that’s as best as I’m going to get it, I did one more tweak on the last measure, so will do a final one now. And then when you just start to measure it all the dinning room hit the thermostat temperature and shut the boiler off, so will have to leave it for a couple more minutes. Right, so the final tally is, from worst to last, bathroom an cloak room at 7 degrees difference, not really surprising considering they are by far the smallest rads, you try and get 12 degree drop across something the size of a dinner plate. Second place is the office and hall, next biggest rads at 9 degrees. Jamie’s room and the spare room are at 10 degrees, the kitchen is at 11. The bedroom, on-suite and living room are spot on at 12 degrees and the dining room has 15 degrees. The only way I’d get that slightly better is to increase the pump speed and I don’t really want to go there again. So, there we are, all finally done (hopefully).

Now time for a shower as I’m covered in sweat as it’s about 34 degrees in here at the moment. Then I’ll screw the covers back on the lock shields. It’ll be interesting to see how much noise it generates now as there is an unrestricted flow on both the dining room (which has no TRV) and the lounge, so the pump shouldn’t be able to suck in any air through the vent. We will see.

So woke up at 5AM (well the alarm was set for that), looked out the window, light snow, nothing major. So reset the alarm for 6:30AM. Got up at 20 past. Took the dog to day care, roads were fine. Went back to bed.

So today was working on a mobile project, was a bit stop start as I had a few problems getting my head round what needed to be done. Plus the office wanted me to sort their phone system out, which is a little tricky when you’re a hundred miles away. Anyway, phone system sorted, one mobile problem sorted, so went out for a run.

Came back to find the cleaners waiting outside, which was odd as it was an hour before they were expected. Anyway, they got on with it, I leant them my Dyson, as it was a damn site better at dog hair than their Henry.

Picked up dog. Came back and finally got into some decent work. Worked on into the evening.

Balancing radiators is proving somewhat impossible. I think it’s because who ever installed the heating hasn’t actually fitted the radiators in a loop, I think there are actually three separate loops. So what I think I’ll do is open up all the valves again and then measure all the flow temperatures, those rads that are at a higher temperature I’ll close down the lock shields a bit, then hopefully that will even out the heat distribution across the rads. It’ll kill a few hours anyway.

So finished off what I was doing, checked it all in. Now back to mobile. An interesting task ahead, not that I managed to get a great deal of it done today, hopefully get a bit more stuck into it tomorrow. At the moment just getting rather pissed off with the weather. Did manage to go out for a run lunchtime without slipping over.

Jamie took the dog out this evening, she did a bit of a runner and pulled him over, so walk over in five minutes, plus she’s going to be a bit screwed tomorrow as well as it’s still snowing now, so I don’t really fancy taking her to day car at 6:30 in the morning at minus 4.

In other news, I played with the heating. Again the lock shields are almost closed, but I’ve turned down the pump and the boiler appears to be modulating correctly. I’ve done four radiators and bled everything again. I had it cranked up full earlier, it was like a sauna in here but I did get superb flow and return temperatures at the boiler, so I know I’m actually getting somewhere this time.

Just watched ‘Up’, really enjoyed it actually, that old man reminds me of me.

Oh talking of being bitter and twisted, I’ve decided what I’m doing for my 50th. Putting a few people in prison. Something to look forward to anyway.