ghost in my radiator

[Two_Sheds]

This is weird (to me; maybe not to Somebody Who Knows)

The radiator in the spare bedroom is always warm, even when my central heating is off.

What's going on?

Our house is a bit peculiar: we have 2 boilers, one for hot water, the other (ancient one) for CH. Don't know why, but can't afford to have a combi yet.

[coomber]

Don't know if yours is the same as ours but if the water in the tank gets too hot there is a kind of overflow into a radiator (so the water dosn't boil!)
Not very technical i know but hope it helps

[di]

We had the same in our old house!Unfortunately the "overflow"radiator was in DD's bedroom that was always the hottest room anyway because of all day sun!
I know it's a waste of water(& we actually didn't do it)but we were told the only way to stop it was to run the hot tap for long enough to get rid of the excess hot water.

[rustylady]

I have something similar. The radiator in the bathroom seems to heat up when the hot water is used (I have a multipoint gas boiler that heats the water for the taps as you use them) and also heats the "central heating" radiators. Must be something to do with the plumbing, but I'm not an expert. I don't mind a warm bathroom, as long as my bedroom doesn't get hot.

[shirlthegirl43]

Our heating is the same as rustylady's. Our bathroom radiator gets warm when the hot water is on. I was led to believe there was always a 'master radiator' sort of thing. I like the bathroom warm and just turn down the thermo on the rad when it is warm weather

[AndrewD]

Having a radiator as a heat overflow for the hot water cylinder is necessary with a solid fuel boiler, as you can't control the temperature. Once the fire is lit you can't turn it off when the water is hot. This should not be necessary if you are using gas or oil (with a pressure jet burner) which can easily be switched on/off automatically by a thermostat. If you have a back boiler in an open fire or an Aga solid fuel cooker, this will probably only be capable of heating the domestic hot water and not the central heating. The central heating boiler was probably a newer addition to the house. As a plumber I cannot think of any other reason why you would have 2 boilers with the hot water connected to a radiator. If your hot water is heated by a multipoint gas boiler, it shouldn't be connected to a radiator. These produce hot water on demand, directly heating mains water and delivering it to your taps, as you would get from a combi. The advantage of a multipoint is the convenience of having hot water as and when you require it, using gas. Then you could use a different fuel for your central heating, in particular solid fuel. Wood burning boilers are becoming more popular these days as they are carbon neutral. The carbon released from burning wood is equal to the carbon absorbed by the tree during it's life and if the wood was left to decay naturally, it would release the same carbon anyway. There are wood burning boilers these days, that burn so efficiently that they can be used in smoke controlled areas. A wood burning stove can burn scrap wood that wood otherwise be thrown away and therefore you can get such wood for free from neighbours, any local builders or businesses that have to get rid of pallets, or tree surgeons who would otherwise have to pay to dump branches etc. If anyone's interested I found an interesting web site, British Wildlife | Wild About Britain, and in their forums there is a section for energy forums.

[Two_Sheds]

Thanks Andrew the Plumber.

Both our boilers are gas. No solid fuel whatsoever.

The people who had our house did everything on the cheap. We have lightswitches behind doors, skirting boards that don't go all the way along a wall, they didn't bother painting behind wardrobes ...

probably it was cheaper to fit a 2nd boiler just for hot water than to put in a combi for both.

[Flummery]

The people who had our house did everything on the cheap. We have lightswitches behind doors, skirting boards that don't go all the way along a wall, they didn't bother painting behind wardrobes ...

They did ours too! We've been here 9 years and are still finding rubbish jobs that we have to undo before we can do things our way. We were going to give the house a name - Bodge Lodge!

[Finedon.Dandy]

My Dad used to call my first house, "the house that Jack built"! We had some shelves that were so wonky things used to all slide down one end! One shelf just fell off the wall on moving day when I put a BOX OF TISSUES - (THATS ALL - LOL!!!) on it!!!!! The central heating was just soooo noisy and the letter box had been nailed shut!

[BrideXIII]

I'm with the overflow theory, we have gas CH, and when they came to do the yearly check, i asked them why the bathroom radiator was always warm when the others weren't, i was told it was a saftey measure, and it was supposed to be.