Radiator in Conservatory

[sotal]

Just a quick question for those who have radiators in their conservatories...

Do you do anything special to make sure it doesn't freeze?

At the moment it comes on with the heating at 6am, until 8am. Then again at 3.30pm until 8pm.

After 8pm it goes quite cold quickly in the conservatory, and I'm just a little worried about how cold it will go in the middle of the night, is it anything I should worry about? What do others do.

The heating is set to kick back in if the temp drops to 14*C, but that's in the living room where the stat is and so far I don't think it's dropped below 14*C in the living room.

Do I just hope that when it's cold enough to cause a problem in the conservatory it will drop below 14*C in the living room or do conservatories get worryingly cold?

 

[Whitespirit66]

If you are using your heating in your house on a daily basis, it is unlikely that your conservatory will get below freezing. Presumably if it did drop considerably, the temp in the hall would also drop, though to a lesser degree, but would activate the stat in the hall.

However, if the heating was off for a long period, it could drop below freezing.

Two things you could do;

Put some combined heating system antifreeze and corrosion inhibitor (eg. Fernox Alphi) in the system. Bit expensive though, average system works out at £100 just for the solution

Get a frostat fitted in the conservatory to turn the boiler on if temp reaches freezing.

 

[sotal]

Thanks for the reply, I take it the frostat is an additional room stat - does that wire into the timer unit (long way away in the airing cupboard) or directly to the boiler (on the other side of the wall to the conservatory)

The system has some kind of Fernox in it, not quite sure what it is but if you drain any water out of the radiator it is yellow. The boiler was replaced last May and filled then.

The current room stat is a wireless one which is kept in the living room as that is the only room without a TRV. The stat has the timer functions built in so we leave the main timer unit on 24/7. The room stat then has two heat settings normal and what it calls 'night setting' the night setting is set to 14*C so at the moment if the temp in the living room gets to 14*C the heating kicks back in. What I guess I could do is change this 'night setting' to a lower temp - something like 4*C then put the stat in the conservatory at night time. - bit of a hassle but I guess it'll do the job without any extra purchase

 

[MJN]

What I guess I could do is change this 'night setting' to a lower temp - something like 4*C then put the stat in the conservatory at night time. - bit of a hassle but I guess it'll do the job without any extra purchase

If I were you I'd first try putting a thermometer with minimum-value recording in there just to see if there really is a risk. With an outside temperature of -2C at the moment our currently-unheated conservatory feels 'freezing' but is actually only bottoming out at 7C. I shall of course be keeping an eye on it to see if it drops any lower but from the observations thus far I'm not at all concerned.

Mathew

 

[Agile]

Its unlikely to freeze if its only -2 outside.

But you could put a blanket or duvet over the rad to help protect it.

Tony

 

[sotal]

I'll try a thermometer with a min max recording, I think I still have one in my garage.

I saw it as low as -5*C outside last night, what sort of temp would you guess it would need to be outside before the conservatory gets to freezing?