Bengasman/Doitall, thanks for your time and input, everything you say is quite correct, there is however a little bit more to the job than you are aware the client has specified that absolutely no controls or pipes are to be on show in the room even the cover on the rad has to be scurely screwed to the wall (it is going to be a pig of a job) and unless i devise a screwed removable panel the cover would have to be unscrewed just to bleed it, I intend to enter the room from the room next door (which is a bathroom) coming central and below the rad with 15 m copper or plastic which will be totaly encased within the cover, the pipework next door also cannot be on show and i will be dropping from the ceiling void above within the ips paneling behind the toilet and basin, this also raises the question of if i where to use one where to mount the remote trv sensor, within the constraints of the job the only place would be within the ips paneling next door, this is obviously not ideal as it would not be sensing the temp in the room where the rad is and to make any adjustment would involve unscrewing the paneling. this is where the client has agreed the rad will either be on or off and no inbetween, to be honest i am not expecting this radiator to get to warm going off the rest of this very old system which has been added to and added to over the years which is the main reason i have been toying with the idea of full bore valves instead of rad valves to give max flow thru, bengasman you mentiond wheelhead valves i prefere 1/4 turn ball valves as they are a better quality product and with the lever handle removed are more compact. Any type of electric heating the client deems a fire hazard so thats out,oh well i will probably end up using trv with head removed and lockshield and if anything alters in the future they will have the option of fitting a remote head, i just thought someone out there might have tried this unconventional approach at sometime. many thanks