Radiator add on fans, do they work?

[ericmark]

Last house had a Myson fan assisted radiator, small, high output, but the fan was on a massive rheostat, and low speed hardly heated room, high speed noisy, I see the new Ivector auto changes fan speed which seems a better idea, but noise from fan was no noticed during the day, but in the evening it was noticed while watching TV.

Putting a second standard radiator in the room, resulted in fan only running on very cold nights, as fan was thermostatically controlled.

Had a problem with one room in late mothers house, it was not warm enough, so placed an upright fan alongside so it would blow down the radiator and used my beer brewing thermostat to switch it on only once feed pipes warm enough.

It was a failure, even at lowest speed once it switched on it cooled the radiator quickly, tried adjusting the lock shield valve, but with thermostat on return pipe, the fan cycled on/off all the time, and when I considered the old Myson there was no restriction to water flow, and the matrix was more like a car radiator.

So clearly the fan needs to be rather small, and the lock shield valve needs to be set so there is a good flow, but not using a modulating boiler so warm return water is not really a problem.

There seems to be a commercial version of an add on fan, seems to used computer fans so not shifting much air, and like my test it has a thermostat so only runs when radiator hot, but not sure if any better than my home made unit.

The problem is as the TRV closes these units still are likely to run. So has anyone used these units? Radfan, etc. Do they really work? Already two large radiators in the room, which do get hot, but slow heating room.

Or has anyone tried circulating fans independent and have they worked?

 

[^woody^]

The problem is that as the fan is moving warm air away from the emitter, the warm air is both cooling and bringing in cold air from the floor/rest of the room and this can make it seem draughty in the room.

Strictly, there needs to a much higher heat output (like from warm air heating) and a warm room, to compensate and for the room to feel comfortable - ie the fan concept appear to work, and there be no draughts.

Having said that I've worked on estates where the Myson heater or similar was fitted and residents were happy with them, and they were generally successful in moving air around to prevent condensation mould in susceptible rooms. Fan noise and casing rattle tended to be a regular complaint, rather than heat issues

Are the existing radiators balanced and have suitable output for the room?

 

[ericmark]

The radiators are big, but not big enough, it is a large room with a radiator under each window, they can maintain the heat but not heat up once room allowed to cool. So fan assistance just when schedule has changed room temperature. So looking at

this sort of thing, to boost output on temperature change, but switch off again latter. I assume could use IFTTT to control, if target 1°C under current want fan to run, other wise don't want it to run, and also don't want to run if radiator cold.

 

[Pete the Feet]

I have been using one of these [Twin unit] since May this year. I only tried it as fitting a larger or extra radiator would look very odd in my living room and the pipework would be unsightly.

The links don't seem to work so just type in SpeedComfort radiator fan.

SpeedComfort | Smart Radiator Fan | Feel Warmer, Save Energy, Save Money

You need to have a mains outlet in close enough proximity to the radiator as they are mains driven via a low voltage plug in transformer. Our living room is quite cold due to a large window area and having an additional outside wall. Our occupation is often unpredictable and therefore the heating isn't always set to on for a fixed time, although I now have a VSmart internet mobile app controller. Having said that I still forget to switch it on prior to arriving home.

With all of the above aside does it work? Yes, and it heats the room up far quicker and I can also reduce the boiler flow temperature. The downside is the noise. While not noisy as such I can hear it if there is no TV or stereo on but the Mrs doesn't notice it. It can always be turned off when up to temperature if it bothers you that much. I even bought a Smart plug so that I can do this from my chair. I'm not just a lazy so and so but the plug socket is hard to get to, honest. I purchased a twin unit but you can always unplug and just use the single fan or just buy the single fan unit. Buy one from Amazon and send it back if you don't like it. They do work. If you are used to a fan convector noise then this shouldn't be a problem as they are relatively quiet as compared to a fan convector.

Also I have double panel radiators and the unit fits magnetically between the panels at the base. I cleaned out the gap before fitting with a garden cane sellotaped and wrapped with a duster as I didn't want a load of dust blowing over the curtains.

 

[SFK]

Always though a great idea to get a boost of heat into one room that has an undersized radiator.

But been massively skeptical and disturbed by the claims to:
"Boost the warmth, save energy and get money off your heating bill. Due to the faster heat output, your thermostat can be switched off earlier and the temperature of your boiler lowered. With a shorter heating time and greater heat capacity, you can use your energy more efficiently and significantly reduce your heating costs".

In reality the fans move more heat from the radiator, so more gas needed to re-heat the radiator water, so they increase cost of heating bill.
And if it does switch off the thermostat earlier (presumably only if in the same room with the fans) then all the other rooms in house stay cold (which I suppose does save energy even if it does make rest of the house unpleasantly cold).


(don't get me started on companies claiming 500W panel heaters being more efficient than 1000W panel heaters).

SFK

 

[Pete the Feet]

I suppose it depends upon each individual house. In my limited experience I have found that I now do not need to switch on the electric fan convector in order to bring the room up to a comfortable temperature. The boiler is running at a lower flow temperature and the room is comfortable at a lower thermostat set point. The radiator is sited underneath a large window and now instead of the heat slowly making its way into the room it spreads out faster and not just through the window. The thermostat is quite a way off the radiator and when it reaches temperature the house is usually fine. We are now able to set the thermostat at 19.5C as opposed to 23C in order to get an even and comfortable room temperature.

Comparing the gas usage with this time last year it is looking favourable so far but the next few Winter months will give a definitive answer to this. The bottom line is that the room is more comfortable.

An extra or increased size of radiator would have been my first choice but we have vinyl plank flooring down and I'm not for ripping this up. If we were carpeted then it would have been done by now.

 

[SFK]

Pete,
fully agree.
And to be clear - I feel that they do work and do their job.
But sellers should not say they save money.

They do make a room warmer, but to do this more gas is used (likely not much more in grand scheme of whole house heating).

 

[ericmark]

Thank you, it seems they may help, not worried about saving oil, but the living room is slow to heat up, I have set the TRV heads to 22°C and 23°C even when I only want 20°C as the anti hysteresis software is a bit OTT with the Energenie heads, should be easy enough to supply the fans from an Energenie socket but not sure about using IFTTT to turn on the fan when current temperature is lower than target, never really got in to IFTTT.

 

[Pete the Feet]

Hi Eric, I'm not sure about IFTTT but the fan on the SpeedComfort switches on when the radiator gets warm it isn't thermostatically controlled. You will find if you use a SpeedComfort that the room will heat up faster and you will not need a high setpoint if you have a room stat. You will save on fuel as you will be able to have a lower boiler flow temperature.

 

[ericmark]

I use all electronic TRV heads, and the problem room uses wifi versions, so in theory these should connect to the same make of socket so can use them as boost when changing room temperature, however likely I will use a simply thermostat to switch on/off as required.

What I wanted to know was if they worked, and you have answered that, the control is some thing I can work out if they work. Tried home made version in mother house before we sold it, and it was not very successful, the fan I used was too big, and I used a sensor on the return pipe, but as soon as fan started the radiator cooled so fan switched off again, so it was switching on/off all the time.

Hence the question to see if anyone had got them to work, now I know yours work, I will look again as using a fan. Big problem is the settee hides the radiator so using a fan should remove that problem.