Our alarming high electricity bill

“Everybody” knows it and the internet is full of it. When the thermostatic valves from the radiator don’t work anymore you have to screw off the thermostats and move the little pin a little. Don’t pull because it can come out. Just push and let it come back.

I went through our house and at least half of the thermostatic valves didn’t work anymore. You close the valve and the radiator stays hot. You can imagine our electricity bill. We have an heat exchanger (air-water) but even with this thing our bill is alarmingly high.

So time to hit the little pins.

First step and problem. Some of the thermostatic valves are so tightly screwed that I can’t get them off. Luckily it’s a minority. So most of the nonfunctioning valves are off now.

Next step: push the little pins. Some were hard to push in but some were easy. Strange as they all should be hard…

Last step: screw the thermostatic valves again on it and problem solved. …   :-)

Nope.    :-(

Time to take a closer look to the (nonfunctioning) thermostatic valves. They have also a little pin inside. That pin is pushing the little pin on the radiator. And it turns out that notwithstanding the outside of the thermostats seem the same the pins, both on the radiator and in the valve, can be different in length. And it turned out that all of the nonfunctioning valves were not fitting with the radiator…

So after some trial and error I found out how to open the valve. And indeed 1 little plastic piece, being the pin, turned out to be different. So changing this piece will solve the problem. But… where can you find such a piece. As in this country there are only big warehouses and I would be astonished to find it there.