World's most useless double socket
- Thread starter Tom__40
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I have seen this quite a few times before, often in older houses that were wired up before CH came along. What the plumber was thinking fixing a rad in front of a socket, IDK, but they obviously don't care!
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If you use fan assisted radiators that would be very good, some years ago they were considered the bees knees, the idea was if you heat up rooms fast you can turn off heating when not required, this was before the condensate boiler or internet, and the fan assisted radiator has a matrix like a car heater so not as much water in the system so it takes less time before the boilers heat is pumped into the room, and a 3.5 kW radiator was quite small and did not really matter if hidden by furniture.
However it did not restrict water flow, it controlled output by varying fan speed, so when off hot water returned to boiler, this did not matter with old boilers, but with the condensate type it causes the boiler to turn down premature, they are still used in kitchens as kick space heaters, as one of 10 having the hot water return and mix with return from others you can still keep return water down to 40°C, but any more than one and it messes up the modulation of the boiler, so they have gone out of favour.
In my old house it ran in series with another radiator in the same room, it means when the TRV on second radiator closes the Myson does not get hot enough to trigger the fan, but on start from cold the living room heats up fast.
I am not convinced they were ever that good, as in most rooms heat circulates from radiator up across the ceiling down opposite wall and across floor back to radiator so the TRV at bottom of radiator is in ideal position to monitor room temperature, and if placed 90° to windows the air around the windows can stay cool and it only heats centre of the room, so saves energy, but the fan assisted radiator circulated the air much faster and so it also circulated air around the windows, so more energy lost through the windows, that assumes radiators were mounted 90° to windows, however I have seen radiators right under the windows, so hottest air goes to the worst insulated part of the room first, so massive amounts of heat lost, but it did free walls for furniture, so not all bad.
However it did not restrict water flow, it controlled output by varying fan speed, so when off hot water returned to boiler, this did not matter with old boilers, but with the condensate type it causes the boiler to turn down premature, they are still used in kitchens as kick space heaters, as one of 10 having the hot water return and mix with return from others you can still keep return water down to 40°C, but any more than one and it messes up the modulation of the boiler, so they have gone out of favour.
In my old house it ran in series with another radiator in the same room, it means when the TRV on second radiator closes the Myson does not get hot enough to trigger the fan, but on start from cold the living room heats up fast.
I am not convinced they were ever that good, as in most rooms heat circulates from radiator up across the ceiling down opposite wall and across floor back to radiator so the TRV at bottom of radiator is in ideal position to monitor room temperature, and if placed 90° to windows the air around the windows can stay cool and it only heats centre of the room, so saves energy, but the fan assisted radiator circulated the air much faster and so it also circulated air around the windows, so more energy lost through the windows, that assumes radiators were mounted 90° to windows, however I have seen radiators right under the windows, so hottest air goes to the worst insulated part of the room first, so massive amounts of heat lost, but it did free walls for furniture, so not all bad.
I had Dimplex Smartrads in the flat I moved out of last year. That said, it was a ground floor mid terrace and I also had a heat pump and triple glazing. The Smartrads are cheap to run, but noisy. They're not too bad, but it's the getting up to speed bit that makes more noise than when it's actually running, specially on the lowest speed. You do get used to them though. They are also pricey, on a par with Aluminium radiators, which is what I'll be putting upstairs, though not under the windows for most of them - they'll be going on a convenient wall more towards the centre of the house, and I'm hoping new triple glazing will help keep the rooms getting too cold near the external walls.
My Father-in-law is in sheltered flat and they are in the middle of changing over from E7 to gas fired heating [big main boiler with a heat meter in each flat] they are insisting that where there is a window in the room the rad is under it. When he asked for them to be where the storage heater was there was an explanation that under the window is more efficient/effective as it heats the coolest air. Sadly they mounted the temp sensor on the partition wall the other side of the heat exchanger so it has to be set to something like 28'C, we've asked for it to be moved but have to wait for the end of lockdown.
As to OP, when I was about mid teens Dad and I installed central heating at home and quite knowingly placed 2 radiators over sockets, both quite forgotten for 40years until we did some refurb including rewire.
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I've not often seen a double 13A socket on an off peak suply!
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