Size of Radiators or sizing of radiators for a room
- Thread starter Andy1946
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Yeah, I think the OP is on some kind of trip.
Its only plumbing mate, we leave the splitting of atoms to the experts.
If you want to demonstrate your superior intelligence, can I suggest the Mensa web site instead.
Here the topics are mainly plumbing, beer and totty (in that order).
Its only plumbing mate, we leave the splitting of atoms to the experts.
If you want to demonstrate your superior intelligence, can I suggest the Mensa web site instead.
Here the topics are mainly plumbing, beer and totty (in that order).
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I must admit that I do tend to oversize my radiators by 30% and that is always a big hit with the customers but it is all kidology... There are no savings to be made it simply heats the room quicker or gives a little extra capacity in unusually cold weather.... Once your room is up to temperature and your radiator shuts down then surly the water simply passes through the pipework and returns to the boiler with little or no temperature difference, surly this negates any advantages in having a condensing boiler. Surly this will defeat the variable pump speed which is there to ensure that there is a suitable inlet and outlet delta T.
From what I gather, you prefer to leave your rooms at minimum temperature until you intend to use a room and then boost it rapidly up to operating temperature, in which case yes you would need large radiators to ensure rapid warm up and yes you would save money from heating only the area that you use but personally speaking prefer to heat my home to a nice even temperature, using the fabric of the building as one large radiator which evens up the unexpected cold spells and since I do have a tendency to move from one room to another and I don't like large temperature variations.
I do have one room with a grossly oversized rad (It was a leftover from a heat pack that I had installed) and yes I do find that it does warm up very quickly but the room does become overly heated before the TRV can react quickly enough and back off the water flow
I see no great technological advantage of a German boiler, indeed the last German made Bosch boiler that I installed was so large and space inefficient you could almost stand inside the casing to service it. Indeed the quality of a lot of German products has fallen badly.
Before you get all upset about my comments, perhaps you would like to note that I am of German decent living in the UK.. As for your kind invitation, the get the Schnapps out and if you are near the Austrian border, then I am quite partial to Stroh 80 too
From what I gather, you prefer to leave your rooms at minimum temperature until you intend to use a room and then boost it rapidly up to operating temperature, in which case yes you would need large radiators to ensure rapid warm up and yes you would save money from heating only the area that you use but personally speaking prefer to heat my home to a nice even temperature, using the fabric of the building as one large radiator which evens up the unexpected cold spells and since I do have a tendency to move from one room to another and I don't like large temperature variations.
I do have one room with a grossly oversized rad (It was a leftover from a heat pack that I had installed) and yes I do find that it does warm up very quickly but the room does become overly heated before the TRV can react quickly enough and back off the water flow
I see no great technological advantage of a German boiler, indeed the last German made Bosch boiler that I installed was so large and space inefficient you could almost stand inside the casing to service it. Indeed the quality of a lot of German products has fallen badly.
Before you get all upset about my comments, perhaps you would like to note that I am of German decent living in the UK.. As for your kind invitation, the get the Schnapps out and if you are near the Austrian border, then I am quite partial to Stroh 80 too
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Hmmmm..... Why do you feel the need to heat your radiators to 80c when the output of a radiator is rated at a DT of 50c according to BS EN442, so for a room at 21c the radiator surface temperature should be a maximum of 71c.
The main flaw that I can see in your thinking is one of comfort.. Yes your ideas warm the air in the room very quickly indeed but your walls and furniture will still be cold.. The cold walls will cause draughts and sitting on a cold leather suite is no fun... Especially if your GF has a short skirt on
The main flaw that I can see in your thinking is one of comfort.. Yes your ideas warm the air in the room very quickly indeed but your walls and furniture will still be cold.. The cold walls will cause draughts and sitting on a cold leather suite is no fun... Especially if your GF has a short skirt on
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So, you're total experience is based on your own house ? I am a professional heating design engineer, I work for one of the biggest consulting engineers in the UK. I have designed heating systems for many commercial projects. I would like to think I know what I'm talking about.
Why so argumentitive, I only deal with the physics, I have no need to see your house.[/quote]
It would appear that certain elements are critical of the infos I have documented for reasons unknown.
I personally see this more as "Green with envy" for some small childish reason only known to themselves......
Nobody forces any of you to read any of the postings, nor does following any of the suggestions become ever a must! Nor even agreeing with the comments contained in them is a must either, why not just ignore the whole thing and go and do something else?
So why are some of you (a tiny few) so uncouth and unmannered? Its beyond me to give an accurate answer.....I do have my own thoughts, but they do not belong in a Blog!!! Far too rude!!
Any paper critics who would like to come and see the work I have done and even talk to my neighbors here who have known me for nearly 22 years, people who I have also done private work for in their homes, are most welcome.
I have nothing to hide, no need to tell untruths. Nor am I jealous of "better" workers than myself, as my speed is really down at nearly 62 years old!!! My strong points are that I can turn my hand to most things except wall papering!! Painting is not my strong point either, but I can do it!!
I personally see this more as "Green with envy" for some small childish reason only known to themselves......
Nobody forces any of you to read any of the postings, nor does following any of the suggestions become ever a must! Nor even agreeing with the comments contained in them is a must either, why not just ignore the whole thing and go and do something else?
So why are some of you (a tiny few) so uncouth and unmannered? Its beyond me to give an accurate answer.....I do have my own thoughts, but they do not belong in a Blog!!! Far too rude!!
Any paper critics who would like to come and see the work I have done and even talk to my neighbors here who have known me for nearly 22 years, people who I have also done private work for in their homes, are most welcome.
I have nothing to hide, no need to tell untruths. Nor am I jealous of "better" workers than myself, as my speed is really down at nearly 62 years old!!! My strong points are that I can turn my hand to most things except wall papering!! Painting is not my strong point either, but I can do it!!
B
billy bob
If you are so experienced with your scientific approach, why are you asking the question.
Your reply was eagerly read and fully understood.
Your needs are quite different to ours as we have rooms that are sometimes not used for several days in the week, so they are just "Frost watched" for safety reasons, but seldom drop below 14-16°C, even in the coldest weather.
Our kitchen (which I recently enlarged,) has a full sized eating area with Sat TV and radio, which tends to get used mostly during the week evenings. Weekdays, both my Wife and youngest Daughter are at work, the eldest dos not live in....so during the day, its only me and both cats!!
As I am still putting final touches to the kitchen (and going in and out to the Garage for tools etc), so I do not heat the rest during the day, and if the kitchen gets really too cold (seldom), I switch on the pellets stove, which keeps the kitchen radiator thermostat off....and is even cheaper than burning Gas (or oil for that matter!)
With regard to larger radiators "over running" the set temperature, that appears to be a problem when using standard type thermostats only. I use ELV Germany radio thermostats which have a mini controller in them, (they are placed on the wall near to the sitting area in the room and control the rad valve remotely), which senses the "Rate/speed" at which the room is warming up (it learns over the first few switch ons) and it shuts the supply of hot water down slowly to achieve the required temperatures with no noticeable "overshoot" at all, not even 0.5°C, amazing.
Certainly measuring with an inside/outside thermometer (using the outside temp to check the rad water temperature) shows me exactly what is happening and the ELV valves keep the room temps to within 0.5°C of the required temperature all the time. (That is the fine limit of the cheap digital thermometer that I use, 0.5°C).
Such ELV units (or similar) are highly recommended for many other reasons too.....I do believe that they pay for themselves within a few years anyway....but for the comfort alone they are worth the extra cost.
But in any room/house with really good outside wall insulation and standard rad thermostats, overshoot of the temperature will happen to one degree or another (pun intended), then the temperature will/may hunt a few degrees up and down.....some people notice it some don't.....whether its a problem or not is up to the individual. I personally feel that younger people will not notice it so much as older folk.....but I could be wrong.
The only times when a standard rad thermostat does not overshoot its temperature is when the heat losses from a room are such that a "balance" is reached with regard to heat coming in and heat leaving.
This is only really noticeable as the fact that the rad top is warm/hot and the rad bottom is significantly cooler/cold.......for all the time the room is in.....few know this point and even less understand it fully what it means !!!
A room where the heat loss is very low, will maintain its temperature and the WHOLE radiator will cool down to almost room temperature, within 1 or 2 °C and stay that way for long periods..... an hour or more!!!
This is basically a simple test of both insulation and draft exclusion for a particular room!! I find it quite fascinating!!
But such work and study over the years has allowed me to reduce our gas usage to about 30% of what this house needed 22 years ago, but with a significantly larger boiler and a 1000x more comfort!!!
I have a boiler from a subsidiary of Bosch, it is small (28KW)and lives on a wall in the bathroom, you would have to be smaller than a Leprachaun to get inside that one!! Maybe Germany only exports the "Larger" boilers to the UK!!!! Implying that some people are large maybe!! Who knows!!
Your needs are quite different to ours as we have rooms that are sometimes not used for several days in the week, so they are just "Frost watched" for safety reasons, but seldom drop below 14-16°C, even in the coldest weather.
Our kitchen (which I recently enlarged,) has a full sized eating area with Sat TV and radio, which tends to get used mostly during the week evenings. Weekdays, both my Wife and youngest Daughter are at work, the eldest dos not live in....so during the day, its only me and both cats!!
As I am still putting final touches to the kitchen (and going in and out to the Garage for tools etc), so I do not heat the rest during the day, and if the kitchen gets really too cold (seldom), I switch on the pellets stove, which keeps the kitchen radiator thermostat off....and is even cheaper than burning Gas (or oil for that matter!)
With regard to larger radiators "over running" the set temperature, that appears to be a problem when using standard type thermostats only. I use ELV Germany radio thermostats which have a mini controller in them, (they are placed on the wall near to the sitting area in the room and control the rad valve remotely), which senses the "Rate/speed" at which the room is warming up (it learns over the first few switch ons) and it shuts the supply of hot water down slowly to achieve the required temperatures with no noticeable "overshoot" at all, not even 0.5°C, amazing.
Certainly measuring with an inside/outside thermometer (using the outside temp to check the rad water temperature) shows me exactly what is happening and the ELV valves keep the room temps to within 0.5°C of the required temperature all the time. (That is the fine limit of the cheap digital thermometer that I use, 0.5°C).
Such ELV units (or similar) are highly recommended for many other reasons too.....I do believe that they pay for themselves within a few years anyway....but for the comfort alone they are worth the extra cost.
But in any room/house with really good outside wall insulation and standard rad thermostats, overshoot of the temperature will happen to one degree or another (pun intended), then the temperature will/may hunt a few degrees up and down.....some people notice it some don't.....whether its a problem or not is up to the individual. I personally feel that younger people will not notice it so much as older folk.....but I could be wrong.
The only times when a standard rad thermostat does not overshoot its temperature is when the heat losses from a room are such that a "balance" is reached with regard to heat coming in and heat leaving.
This is only really noticeable as the fact that the rad top is warm/hot and the rad bottom is significantly cooler/cold.......for all the time the room is in.....few know this point and even less understand it fully what it means !!!
A room where the heat loss is very low, will maintain its temperature and the WHOLE radiator will cool down to almost room temperature, within 1 or 2 °C and stay that way for long periods..... an hour or more!!!
This is basically a simple test of both insulation and draft exclusion for a particular room!! I find it quite fascinating!!
But such work and study over the years has allowed me to reduce our gas usage to about 30% of what this house needed 22 years ago, but with a significantly larger boiler and a 1000x more comfort!!!
I have a boiler from a subsidiary of Bosch, it is small (28KW)and lives on a wall in the bathroom, you would have to be smaller than a Leprachaun to get inside that one!! Maybe Germany only exports the "Larger" boilers to the UK!!!! Implying that some people are large maybe!! Who knows!!
B
billy bob
OK, so what is your question, when others have given you a response, you say they are wrong, so what is it you actually want to know.
I have no question per se. There was some unfriendly critic from several people who do not believe that what I have been doing successfully for the last 12 years actually works....but of course they themselves will never actually try it out either, their loss to my mind!!!
They also showed less than normal understanding with regard to simple first year physics as well.....
I make no money from it, I just posted to help others, nothing more nothing less......
I just wish that people had better manners than most actually do......!!
Questions of why and how etc. are most welcome and completely normal to my mind, the brainless critic was not!!
They also showed less than normal understanding with regard to simple first year physics as well.....
I make no money from it, I just posted to help others, nothing more nothing less......
I just wish that people had better manners than most actually do......!!
Questions of why and how etc. are most welcome and completely normal to my mind, the brainless critic was not!!
B
billy bob
But nobody asked you a question, if that is what you want to do in your own house, that is fine, but heating installers would not over size a radiator by 4 times its required size, as space is precious to most customers and they would not want their whole wall taken up with a radiator, if we want to run a system at low temperature we will size the radiators according to the manufacturers sizing for radiators at 50 deg C, this will make them larger than a radiator at higher temperature, but no where near 4 times the size, otherwise we would recommend underfloor heating.
Dear BB.
If you had read through my posts, you would see that is exactly what I said. Years ago I tried x4 (double rad, twice as long) and it did exactly what I wanted, so I stayed with it.
But I am not a test laboratory, it worked and takes up no more "noticeable" space than a normal sized rad.....really, nobody notices the difference......except maybe a plumber with his minute calculated rads!!! But no lay persons....I also believe that maybe with only 2 x or even 3 x larger, the same effect would have been noticed, or similar at least, I mentioned that several times in past posts, you may not have read them....
You have to start somewhere as a layman, and I started with 4 x and liked it and stayed there. Have you personally tried 3 x or 2 x? What size does the 50°C give against the normal size (percentage of size increase), that would be interesting to find out from you?
The physical difference in size is nothing like you (and some others) seem to feel it might be, one does not need to lose a whole wall......!!!! Thats just simply wrong!!!
It is strange to me that nobody has got out their measuring stick and worked out the difference in dimension in a more accurate manner......but thats humans for you....!
Nor has anyone sat down and done the simple math that shows that heating a larger quantity of water to a significantly lower temperature (or heating a room to a specific temperature) uses exactly the same energy!!! Some people simply do not understand that at all, that was also a surprise. First year Physics?
And the fact that as long as the central heating boiler was correctly sized in the first place, there is no need to make any changes there either (except to run a lower boiler temperature that is usually more energy efficient), some do not understand that either!!!!
Heating losses are another area that many people do not seem to understand either, they should get their house photographed from all sides (and the roof, at night with an infra red camera, not cheap, but it will shock many!! and would help them with correction of such losses!!!
If you had read through my posts, you would see that is exactly what I said. Years ago I tried x4 (double rad, twice as long) and it did exactly what I wanted, so I stayed with it.
But I am not a test laboratory, it worked and takes up no more "noticeable" space than a normal sized rad.....really, nobody notices the difference......except maybe a plumber with his minute calculated rads!!! But no lay persons....I also believe that maybe with only 2 x or even 3 x larger, the same effect would have been noticed, or similar at least, I mentioned that several times in past posts, you may not have read them....
You have to start somewhere as a layman, and I started with 4 x and liked it and stayed there. Have you personally tried 3 x or 2 x? What size does the 50°C give against the normal size (percentage of size increase), that would be interesting to find out from you?
The physical difference in size is nothing like you (and some others) seem to feel it might be, one does not need to lose a whole wall......!!!! Thats just simply wrong!!!
It is strange to me that nobody has got out their measuring stick and worked out the difference in dimension in a more accurate manner......but thats humans for you....!
Nor has anyone sat down and done the simple math that shows that heating a larger quantity of water to a significantly lower temperature (or heating a room to a specific temperature) uses exactly the same energy!!! Some people simply do not understand that at all, that was also a surprise. First year Physics?
And the fact that as long as the central heating boiler was correctly sized in the first place, there is no need to make any changes there either (except to run a lower boiler temperature that is usually more energy efficient), some do not understand that either!!!!
Heating losses are another area that many people do not seem to understand either, they should get their house photographed from all sides (and the roof, at night with an infra red camera, not cheap, but it will shock many!! and would help them with correction of such losses!!!
Dear Scousegit,
I guess when people like you stop replying to it........and just ignore it!!!
But then why bother even to read it in the first place if you have no interest at all? or are my words like some strong drug that you just cannot say NO to??
Have a great day and "Gan Yem" asap....
I guess when people like you stop replying to it........and just ignore it!!!
But then why bother even to read it in the first place if you have no interest at all? or are my words like some strong drug that you just cannot say NO to??
Have a great day and "Gan Yem" asap....
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