Hmm your Radmate post has been taken down it seems, but I was in the middle of commenting so I'll post my reply here instead...
Vaguely interesting idea, but I see several problems with it.
In no particular order:
- The system needs to be drained down, and all radiators need to be removed, in order to fit the Radmates. Most DIYers wouldn't bother with this, they might possibly fit them when they decorate so that the rads are ready for next time, but then again if they've managed to drain one rad the old way to do this they'll probably manage again in a few years time when they redecorate. Also, as their fitting by a professional is a condition of the warranty, they would work out to be quite expensive to fit.
- The o-rings will leak sooner or later, this is an existing problem with adjustable rad valve tails of which I've repaired a fair few (never fitted them though!).
- There's no way of draining the rad, and that one in the video can't possibly have had water in it, he'd never have picked it up that easily if it had.
- They look unsightly.
- The bore looks tiny, and therefore places huge restrictions on the pipework to the rads
- At £39.95 per radiator they're hideously expensive. I could achieve a better end result, without the restrictive bore or the risk of leaking o-rings in the future, for a material cost of around £5.00 using full-bore ballofixes, or if we put up with the bore restriction then the same end result for a material cost of around £1.40 for normal ballofixes. In other words, using normal ballofixes, I could do two or three houses for lower material costs than doing one radiator with these.
So, in summary, an interesting idea that's wildly overpriced for what it is, will be expensive to fit, does a job that can be done much more cheaply using other methods, doesn't look very nice, restricts the flow to the radiator, can't be fitted by DIYers and won't be fitted by professionals as any pro worth his salt would suggest the customer save themselves a lot of money and just has ballofixes fitted instead.
Sorry to pee on your bonfire.
Hmm your Radmate post has been taken down it seems, but I was in the middle of commenting so I'll post my reply here instead...