radiators

[jmccann]

I live in a 1930 house and find that the radiators get really hot to touch but don't seem to give out much heat, and the rooms feel cold, i am therefore putting the gas fire as well. The downstairs seem worse a than upstairs .

Any ideas on how to solve this.

[Postdog]

Just a suggestion that might work. Insulate behind the rads in some way, and cover that with foil or some other reflective coating to refelect heat out.

A trip to a large DIY store might not go amiss, but that said, it's the wrong time of year really.

[Dapper_C]

I'm experiencing the same thing in my 1930's house, where the rads are blazing hot but don't give off much heat.

I've recently had a new boiler fitted, my plumber advised me to consider changing my rads to the convector type as they throw the heat making the room warmer and saving on heating bills. I'll probably do this in the Autumn.

[woodchopper]

My last house was built in 1920's and had only single rads in it - had them changed to super convector rads - and was snug as a bug.

[gucciman]

you need to get someone to assess whether the radiators are sized correctly to heat the room and also to consider replacing them for a more modern double convector type.

[webdude]

You say the rads are getting hot to the touch, but is that all over? i.e. the full height of the rad. If a rad does not reach an even temperature over its entire working area, this can be due to poor balancing, faulty radiator thermostats (TRVs) if fitted to your rads, worn out pump, or possibly a build up of sludge in the entire system. If that were the problem you would need to drain the entire system, possibly consider power flushing, the re-fill and check the balancing.

[scoob101]

Unfortunately you dont say how old or what style the rads are, you need to get a reliable heating guy in to survey your system, but it sounds to me that you need to be upgrading your radiators to proper sized modern convector radiators with the right output for each of the rooms, this together with a decent TRV and you can set the temp in each room individually and also save your self some money on heating bills with right sized rads that switch off and on as the room reaches the temp you set it at. A good run of the mill rad that I install on all my jobs is Stelrad Compact.