As of 13 August 2026, AI can balance your radiators.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 1 hour until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open a chatbot and paste the prompt, then add the number and location of every radiator and describe the controls fitted to each one.
   2. Gather a thermometer if you have one, note which rooms are too hot or too cold, and record any leaks, stuck valves, unusual noises or boiler faults before changing anything.
   3. Switch the heating on as instructed by the chatbot, let the radiators warm, and record the relevant pipe or radiator readings and room temperatures without removing any covers or boiler panels.
   4. Use the chatbot's identification instructions to find the lockshield or other balancing control on each radiator, and do not force a valve or adjust a control that remains unidentified.
   5. Make one small adjustment at a time, following the sequence from the response, then wait the stated period before recording the new readings and room temperatures.
   6. Compare the final readings and room temperatures with the starting record, check that the colder rooms now warm more consistently, and stop if a valve leaks, will not move, or the boiler or system shows a fault.
   7. Contact a qualified heating professional if the system still heats unevenly after the measured adjustments or if the work appears to involve the boiler, gas controls, draining or a persistent fault.

   Prompt

   Help me balance the radiators in my UK home without touching the gas side of the boiler. Give me a safe, practical sequence for identifying the controls, taking baseline measurements, adjusting the correct valve and checking the result.
   
   My system details:
   - Heating type: [for example, gas boiler with wet central heating]
   - Number of radiators: [number]
   - Radiator locations: [list each room]
   - Controls on each radiator: [thermostatic radiator valve, manual valve, lockshield valve, or unknown]
   - Current problem: [for example, some radiators heat quickly while others stay cool]
   - Measurements I can take: [room temperatures, pipe or radiator temperatures, or none]
   - Boiler or heating controls: [details if known]
   - Any faults, leaks, unusual noises or pressure problems: [details]
   
   Do not tell me to open the boiler casing, alter gas settings, drain the system or force a stuck valve. Explain how to distinguish a thermostatic valve, a manual valve and a lockshield valve, and tell me what to do if I cannot identify one. Separate general guidance from facts that depend on my particular system. Do not invent measurements, manufacturer instructions or a target temperature difference. Tell me what I should measure, how long to wait between adjustments, what improvement I should look for, and when to stop and call a qualified heating professional.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.