Upgrading existing system

[Jever]

Hi,

I live in a house that was built in the mid/late 80s that is heated by means of an oil fuelled boiler with standard central heating radiators controlled by Honewell valves in each room.

The valves look a bit like this:

https://www.plumbnation.co.uk/site/honeywell-vt117e-trv-15mm-angled/

but older and crappier.

I'm thinking it's time I tried to update the system, with the intention that it will become a bit more efficient. My thoughts are to keep the boiler, but change the radiators and control system.

A friend of mine has these radiators:

http://www.traderadiators.com/acatalog/eco-aluminium-radiators.html

They seem to consume a lot less wall space for the equivalent amount of heat output from the standard radiators I have and I'm thinking about changing to them. Does anyone have any knowledge/experience of them? They look really high-tech, but I don't think you can paint/refinish them and they're probably difficult to get the dust out of.

Also, I have no idea what control systems are available now. If I'm going to change the radiators, I could easily switch the valve system to something more modern. Is it possible to set a system up so that you can control the temperature profile of each room individually across the day (hence minimising oil usage)?

I would be grateful for any insights.

Jever

 

[D_Hailsham]

A friend of mine has these radiators:

http://www.traderadiators.com/acatalog/eco-aluminium-radiators.html

They seem to consume a lot less wall space for the equivalent amount of heat output from the standard radiators I have

That's because they are cheating when they state the radiator output!

The column showing the boiler output is headed "BTU (Δ60)". This means that the difference between room temperature and mean rad temperature is 60C, so a rad temperature of 80C when the room temp is 20C.

All reputable rad manufacturers quote outputs which are measured in accordance with British Standard BS EN 442. This stipulates a temperature difference of 50C, i.e 70C rad temp when room temp is 20C.

The effect of cheating is that the rads appear to produce about 25% more heat than other brands.

 

[stem]

with the intention that it will become a bit more efficient. My thoughts are to keep the boiler, but change the radiators and control system.

Water leaves the boiler at the temperature set at the boiler thermostat, passes through radiators and the heat that they give up is lost from the water. The water then returns to the boiler where the same amount of heat that has been lost is replaced.

Radiators that emit more heat will warm up the rooms more quickly but will also consume more fuel to do so, however, the thermostats will close down earlier, so it's 'swings and roundabouts'. loose in one aspect and gain on another.

At the end of the of the day, if you heat your home to the same temperature, changing the radiators will have no effect on energy efficiency.

Heat emitted from the radiators into home = Heat put back in the water by the boiler.