Our installations come standard with thermostatic radiator valves. This is a must for our steam installations and an option for our hydronic installations.

TRVs on Steam- TRVs allow the boiler to be sized to the houses needs versus the existing radiators
The reason that TRVs are mandatory on our steam installations is because it allows us to more accurately size the boiler to the needs of the home. In general when sizing a steam boiler you size the boiler to the radiators. The issue with this is that the radiators are existing. Who knows who installed them, what kind of windows did the house have at the time, what kind of insulation, what were the needs of each room. Or were the radiators just picked from whatever was available and installed. No one knows. This means that you could potentially be over sizing the boiler to an already over sized system. TRVs allow you to size the boiler to the house and they control how much steam goes into each radiator. They sense the temperature in the room and let out only the right amount of air to keep the room at a desired temperature. Therefore if a room has sun coming in, internal gains, or a party the radiator will only have some sections hot if heat is necessary at all.

How does it impact my boiler? TRVs allow the boiler installed to be smaller. By installing a smaller boiler the home owner will save on their heating bills and in the case of an oil to gas conversion, on their chimney lining.

TRVs on hydronic- Automatic Balancing
A hydronic boiler is already sized up to the house so TRVs do not affect its sizing. What they do affect is balancing issues. A properly balanced system is an extreme comfort. TRVs on hydronic allow for each radiator to control how much water flow it needs and therefore remove the need to balance manually. This also affects air removal. Our systems have air eliminators installed at the boiler. An improperly balanced system traps the air regardless of these air eliminators.

While it is not required to install TRVs with our installations it is highly recommended.