Radiator Booster - any thoughts?

whasup

Why not reposition your thermostat above the largest radiator in the system. Boiler will shut off even quicker and you will save even more money.

don0301

whasup wrote: »

Why not reposition your thermostat above the largest radiator in the system. Boiler will shut off even quicker and you will save even more money.

the boiler on??

how the hell can you save money like that?

Cardew

don0301 wrote: »

the boiler on??

how the hell can you save money like that?

You don't 'do' Irony!

don0301

Cardew wrote: »

You don't 'do' Irony!

Do I do showing you up better?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3738661

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

You don't 'do' Irony!

Oi, Alanis, can't you recognise a joke?

Now that really is ironic!

Mart.

Ben84

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I can see your point that there is little net effect either way, but that is assuming we are happy to heat long and slow.

Obviously impossible, but a better heating solution would be, you switch it on and warm, you switch it off and cold, a bit like a light switch.

So, if you heat the room air quickly (and comfortably), then that has to be better than slowly raising the thermal mass of the room, especially when 8 or 9pm comes round and your body needs to start cooling down to help with natural body and sleep rhythms. At that point, the more heat stored in the structure, the more that will leak away during the night.

Never really considered this issue till we added an extra rad to living room, went from 900mm double, to total 1400mm double. Room now takes 15mins, not 2 hours to heat up - obviously only air, rather than slowly heating thermal mass. Also, the opposite is now true, cools down much quicker, unless heating on all day.

So better to make the room air comfortable quickly for occupants, rather than heat the whole structure if rooms not being occupied continuously. However, in a long cold winter, of many days, even weeks of continuous cold, the net difference would be zero.

Best solution, as all have said, is large efficient rads, with suitable boiler, but 'forcing' more heat from rads quicker can be beneficial, as a faster way of converting gas to heat, if the boiler is up to it. After all most people aren't looking for a mathematical approach to total overall efficiency, they simply want comfort as fast as possible.

Mart.

An important point here is that the rate at which the building itself heats up is directly proportional to the heat in the air inside it. So, if your radiators are emitting more heat because they're bigger or have a fan to speed up their heat transfer, your house will also absorb heat at a faster rate too.

However, while you may notice when you turn on a more powerful heating system for a brief period of time that you heat up fast then cool down fast, the house has still absorbed more heat than it would have with a less powerful heating system turned on for the same amount of time.

So, in every case when you heat the house with a higher kW rated heater for any set amount of time, it will in comparison to a lower rated one result in more heat stored in the house materials at the end and that means it will cool down slower, not faster (assuming your house hasn't reached equilibrium before the end of the heating period).

As for a heating system that can be turned on and off fast, a well insulated low thermal mass house with blown air heating would work like very much like this. You would reach equilibrium fast and heat mostly the air and furniture in the house, meaning little is stored so you could turn it off whenever you no longer want heating.

Martyn1981

Ben84 wrote: »

An important point here is that the rate at which the building itself heats up is directly proportional to the heat in the air inside it. So, if your radiators are emitting more heat because they're bigger or have a fan to speed up their heat transfer, your house will also absorb heat at a faster rate too.

However, while you may notice when you turn on a more powerful heating system for a brief period of time that you heat up fast then cool down fast, the house has still absorbed more heat than it would have with a less powerful heating system turned on for the same amount of time.

So, in every case when you heat the house with a higher kW rated heater for any set amount of time, it will in comparison to a lower rated one result in more heat stored in the house materials at the end and that means it will cool down slower, not faster (assuming your house hasn't reached equilibrium before the end of the heating period).

As for a heating system that can be turned on and off fast, a well insulated low thermal mass house with blown air heating would work like very much like this. You would reach equilibrium fast and heat mostly the air and furniture in the house, meaning little is stored so you could turn it off whenever you no longer want heating.

Hiya Ben. I agree with everything you say, and I think this is an interesting discussion. The point I was trying to make however, is in a slightly different context to your post.

You say if the time is the same, then energy in is more. My point was if you want to get more heat and faster, then a system that might be able to abstract more heat from the rad, can, if there is spare capacity in the boiler, result in more gas being turned into heat in a shorter time period. So long cold days, this could boost the systems output. Doubt the effect is great, but may be worth a punt if the system/rads are older and smaller.

Yes a more powerful system emits more heat in a given time, but my secondary suggestion on using less gas (when temps allow intermittent heating) is that if the 'illusion' of warmth can be reached quicker, then a system doesn't need to come on as early as before. Also, as in my case with better rads, I'm happy to turn the heating off, more, as I now know that a comfortable temp can be reached quickly, so no need to keep the leaky box full of warmth for as long as before.

I agree with you and Z that a better system is the way to go long term. But my understanding of this idea is to 'make do'. I'm not a fan of make do, prefer to fix the problem, but if you don't have the money?

I do like the idea of blown air, underfloor heating, ASHP, or even GSHP, but with a 1930's semi I'm kinda stuck with what I've got. But I am planning!

Cheers.

Mart.

whasup

This is the principle of thermal response. An older style house with higher mass walls will store much more heat than the opposite type of modern house. The older house warms up more slowly but also retains heat for longer (low thermal response) and the modern house warms up quickly but, as a lot of us know, cools down quickly (high thermal response). So which is the most efficient? A lot of people would have you believe that the old house is more efficient because, when the boiler starts up, you're not heating up from stone cold. But that's not really true. For the same heat source controllability is the greatest factor and it is much more efficient to have the heat there when you want it and not when you don't.

My own greatest saving in the last year is realising that I don't have to set my boiler to come on automatically for the evening period. We were often getting home at 5, 6 o'clock or later and the boiler had been blowing away since 4.00pm with nobody there. So now we just flick it on when somebody gets home. (if necessary) The high thermal response means it takes about 15 minutes to get warm and the savings are significant for that slight bit of discomfort.

Dave_Fowler

It is interesting to see how the advertising blurb on the radiator boosters has changed over time. The original MK1 booster made much of the fact that it was designed to sit on top of the radiator overhanging the back and draw the heat up from between the radiator and the wall, thus reducing the temperature of the air behind the radiator and by inference the amount of heat absorbed by the wall and passing through the wall to the outside. The later adverts for MK3 show the booster sitting in the middle of a double radiator drawing the air up the centre gap and hence heating the room more quickly - but still mention the reduction in heat transfer through the wall.

Dave F

zeupater

whasup wrote: »

This is the principle of thermal response. An older style house with higher mass walls will store much more heat than the opposite type of modern house. The older house warms up more slowly but also retains heat for longer (low thermal response) and the modern house warms up quickly but, as a lot of us know, cools down quickly (high thermal response). So which is the most efficient? A lot of people would have you believe that the old house is more efficient because, when the boiler starts up, you're not heating up from stone cold. But that's not really true. For the same heat source controllability is the greatest factor and it is much more efficient to have the heat there when you want it and not when you don't.

My own greatest saving in the last year is realising that I don't have to set my boiler to come on automatically for the evening period. We were often getting home at 5, 6 o'clock or later and the boiler had been blowing away since 4.00pm with nobody there. So now we just flick it on when somebody gets home. (if necessary) The high thermal response means it takes about 15 minutes to get warm and the savings are significant for that slight bit of discomfort.

Hi

I'm a great believer in using thermal mass as smoothing mechanism in a domestic heating environment, especially so when looking at passive heating.

In our house, at this time of year onwards a couple of days of good solar gain from low sun angles provides enough heat to remove the need for heating for at least a further day or two, with the high mass preventing the south-facing rooms from overheating.

Our GCH has been off this week due to the mild weather and all required heat has been provided by some late use of our log burner, approx 8 to 10kg of wood each day, so around 25 to 30kWh of heating. Over the week this level of heating has resulted in there being no need for heating of any form today, whether there is a requirement to light the fire tomorrow will depend on the overnight losses and what the level of solar gain is tomorrow ... low thermal mass properties have a faster response but are unable to effectively moderate and/or store heat as effectively.

HTH
Z