Adding Radiator to a Conservatory

[thePhilster]

Hi

Our conservatory has no central heating; we tend to apply heating via electric oil-fired radiators. We're considering replacing the Polycarbonate roof with an insulated roof, but the heating thing is a bit of a quandary.

My understanding of regulations was that, for a conservatory, any heating has to be on a separate circuit from the main central heating. We currently have a NEST thermostat (it's amazing, btw, has completely changed the way we heat the house), that essentially means the timer is "always on" and NEST decides when to fire up the boiler based on the current room temperature etc.

My thinking was that we could simply plumb in a new radiator to the conservatory, directly from the boiler (i.e. not part of the "main" loop) but essentially the boiler would be triggered by the NEST.

Is that gonna cause issues down the line when we come to sell the house?

TIA!
Phil

 

[muggles]

You're out of date on your regs, you may not attach a radiator in a conservatory to the main heat source for the house no matter how many valves/timers/interlocks/magic spells you put on it. It must be completely independent, IE stick with the oil-filled rads or get an air-source heat pump

Whether it causes problems with a house sale rather depends on how well the person assessing the house knows their regs

 

[thePhilster]

Bummer! I wonder would an Economy 7 storage heater be cheaper than the 2kw oil filled electric radiators we currently use? Spotted these during my searches (https://www.heatershop.co.uk/rointe...tric-conservatory-radiator-1330mm-15-elements) but I'm not sure if they just look quite neat, but aren't actually that effective?

 

[thePhilster]

Actually, I forgot how expensive Economy 7 can be to run during the day... Maybe not suitable for us...

 

[TCCHeating]

As Muggles said. Air source heat pumps are normally the most efficient way to heat a conservatory. Plus you can use them as air conditioning in the summer

 

[simond]

We've just fitted a fan assisted 4Kw radiator last week

,
separated from the main home using Evohome controls, in a customer's existing 'orangery'. You might call it a conservatory.

Runs via an existing Vaillant ecoTEC+ 630 boiler installed by us around 7 yrs back, formerly with the incomprehensible Vaillant System Solution Controls. Now heating zones and uniSTOR unvented all controlled via touch panel and iPhones (and Windows Phone)..., Vaillant controls in the bin.

Now very warm when they want it to be. Not wasting energy when not needed.

 

[JBR]

You're out of date on your regs, you may not attach a radiator in a conservatory to the main heat source for the house no matter how many valves/timers/interlocks/magic spells you put on it. It must be completely independent, IE stick with the oil-filled rads or get an air-source heat pump

Whether it causes problems with a house sale rather depends on how well the person assessing the house knows their regs

Our conservatory has a radiator that is connected to the main CH circuit. It has been like that for longer than the 10 years we have been here, and has caused no problems.

Why are they illegal? Should we disconnect it or just turn it off?

 

[Aquaheat]

@simond how does that fall in with the regs that @muggles has mentioned, that conservatory heating has to be completely independent of the main heating source for the rest of the building?

 

[gigz]

No-ones gonna jail you if you just fit a rad, put a trv on it, then turn it off when you're not using it. Thats what i did with mine anyway. Not having some pen pushing do-gooder tell me how to be comfortable in my own home.
P.S. If it causes problems if/when i decide to sell, i'll disconnect it.

 

[dilalio]

You're paying for the fuel you use, to heat your home so...
I've seen rads in conservatories many times, even garages & 1 shed!

 

[simond]

how does that fall in with the regs that @muggles has mentioned, that conservatory heating has to be completely independent of the main heating source for the rest of the building?

It doesn't bother me. The building is existing, the only way I would know whether or not it was covered under a building regulation would be if I asked.

I know that an Eco7 radiator, a simple electric heater, or even a heat pump will not be as efficient, so who is burning the planet?

 

[stem]

I had an extension and conservatory added 9 years ago. Originally, I was going to have a wet radiator connected to the central heating installed in the conservatory but LABC insisted that it had to be independent from the central heating system. Their definition of 'independent' being not connected to in any way, or sharing any parts of the central heating system.

In the end we had electric heating installed in the form of a 3kW convector with fan boost, and wall mounted thermostat. Because we don't use the conservatory much in the week and just for a few hours at the weekend, we wouldn't want it heated all of the time. Now when we go in, we can switch it on with the fan boost and it's toasty in just a few minutes, then we turn the fan (which is noisy and the blast of heat can be irritating after a while) off, and leave it running in convector mode. If if were connected to the house system, it's possible that when we went in, the room thermostat in the hall would be off, and the radiator wouldn't come on at all for quite some time.

An added bonus is that in late summer / autumn if it's a bit chilly in the conservatory of an evening we don't need to fire up the whole central heating for a few minutes of heat.

 

[stem]

I know that an Eco7 radiator, a simple electric heater, or even a heat pump will not be as efficient

Really?

Efficiency of an electric heater is 100% (1 kW of electricity produces 1 kW heat)

Efficiency of a heat pump, varies, but manufacturers claim up to 300% (1 kW of electricity produces 3 kW heat)

Efficiency of a condensing gas boiler also varies, but typically 90% max

 

[Dan Robinson]

And for a kW of Leccy you pay?

 

[Agile]

Efficiency of a heat pump, varies, but manufacturers claim up to 300% (1 kW of electricity produces 3 kW heat)

A heat pump should really be rated on the "extra" heat that it can recover.

So in that example the 1kW of electricity would recover 2 kW and give an output of 3 kW ( of which 1 kW isd the mains input power ).

So in reality it would only be 200% efficient if you defined it as it really should be.

Tony