The Benefits and the Disadvantages of Having TRV's Fitted

The main benefit of having TVR’s fitted is one of economic and energy saving grounds. They are thermostatic so they can control the temperature in individual rooms regardless of the temperature of the most commonly used habitable rooms, where typically the room thermostat will be located and which controls whether the heating systems as a whole comes on or goes off. This prevents ‘over heating’ it two key circumstances:

1.When rooms do not need to be heated to the same temperature as the main living rooms, such as bedrooms perhaps, the TRV can be set lower and the room will only be heated to the lower temperature before the thermostatically controlled valve will activate and stop the flow of hot water to the radiator

2.In the main living rooms where there might be a secondary source of heating; this could be another heating appliance or it could be the sun (solar gains) or from having a lot of people in the room. The TRVs will switch the radiator off when the rooms reaches the desired temperature, therefore preventing overheating

By preventing overheating you are preventing excess heat being generated, saving money and carbon being wasted on the fuel burn for unwanted heat. This is the reason that the government see TRV’s as a good solution and are encouraging their use by inclusion of rules in the building regulations.

Other benefits include the extra flexibility that they provide the home owner by allowing them to have some control on the temperature in individual rooms. This allows them to set the temperature to their own individual preference. If a room is not being used, they can be set to their lowest temperature setting maintaining the room temperature at a chilled level, without wasting energy or risking frost damage.

TRV’s are very easy to change so they can be altered in seconds should a room be occupied again after a period of low usage.

Essentially, the disadvantages of TRVs stem from the fact that they are fairly crude devices that can be ‘fooled’ about the actual temperature in the room, such as by draughts making then ‘believe’ the room is too cold, or a lack of ventilation around them making then ‘think’ the room is too warm when it is not.

Despite being relatively simple devices, they can indeed breakdown and fail. If they are off when they break, then the radiator will fail to come on when required and could lead to condensation and other problems. If they break when on, then they will lead to overheating which is the problem that they are designed to cure.

Thankfully modern TRVs are generally very reliable and generally operate for many years without major problems. However, if you are reading this project it is highly likely that you will be experiencing an issue with your radiator valves, so this is what we will cover next.