Foil and radiators

Klug

Hi all
This has probabaly been raised before on here but I have looked back and used the search facililty but cannot get a link...

Can anyone advise please if there is a benefit to putting foil behind the radiators? If so, is it a special foil? How do you do it? I'm not up to
removing radiators, lol!

Many thanks

Mankysteve

There no advantage to using the foil.

The radiator heats the wall. When the heating goes off that heat is realised back into the room.

The only time there may be some advantage and this is questionable is when the radiator is on my external wall.

iamcornholio

Yes it does work and is worth doing

It reflects the radiant heat rays back into the room and not into (and out of) the wall, thus saving energy.

You can get this stuff on a roll, and is foam with a mylar foil face and comes with some self-adhesive pads. If you can't remove the rads and brackets, then you can just cut a square of it, cut slots where the brackets are and slide it over the brackets and fix with the pads

Try Wickes

cutandshut

I agree with Steve - waste of time. Most of the heat from a radiator is distributed to the room by convection. Hold your hand more than a foot or so from a rad and the radiated heat is zilch.

iamcornholio

But the wall the radiator is fixed to is not a foot away is it?

brig001

I always thought it was a waste of time till I used an infra-red thermometer on the other side of the wall from the radiator. Could clearly "see" the heat from the radiator. I used foil bubble wrap behind ours, and the wall behind is much cooler and I can't "see" it from the other side now. I have only used it on outside walls and the wall to our integrated garage (the one I tested). I'm sure the difference is small, but it definitely makes a difference.
HTH, Brian.

moonrakerz

iamcornholio wrote: »

It reflects the radiant heat rays back into the room and not into (and out of) the wall, thus saving energy.

Heat rays ? War of The Worlds ?

Radiators produce hardly any radiant heat - they should be named convectors because that is how they work.

Arfa__

If you want your radiator to actually radiate heat, paint them a matt black colour. Shiny and bright/light colours are terrible for radiating (and absorbing) heat, whilst dark and matt colours are very good at radiating (and absorbing) heat.

dander

Mankysteve wrote: »

There no advantage to using the foil.

The radiator heats the wall. When the heating goes off that heat is realised back into the room.

The only time there may be some advantage and this is questionable is when the radiator is on my external wall.

I'd disagree when you say there's no advantage. While, of course, this process means that over a period of time, the heat released into the room is the same, that heat is not neccessarily released when you want it. If you insulate the wall to prevent that heat going into the bricks as much in the first place, you get the room hotter, quicker when you actually want the heat there. It doesn't really matter to me if it cools down a bit quicker when I've turned the heating off and gone to bed.

Norman_Castle

I have corrugated card behind my two radiators which are fitted to outside walls. Easy and free to do. The walls behind the radiators now stay much cooler.
I fitted it by cutting the card approx 30mm smaller than the radiator then sliding it behind the radiator from above. When it hits the top of the brackets the card will be marked. Cut out slots for the brackets and slide the card back behind the radiator.

Norman_Castle

Found this here, http://www.mytechguide.com/16/getting-the-most-from-radiators/

Reflective foil behind radiators
Some of the heat from a radiator will heat up the wall on which it is mounted. If that wall is an outside wall, a lot of this heat will be conducted to the outside of the building and lost. Luckily, it is very cheap and simple to prevent this from happening, by placing reflective foil on the wall behind the radiator. Research in the UK has shown that almost any kind of reflective foil (even ordinary aluminium kitchen foil) can reduce this heat loss by 5%. Properly designed reflective panels, which combine reflective foil with a thin layer of insulation, can reduce the heat lost through walls by up to 18%.

Test was done in a house in North-east England using a thermal camera. There is a radiator mounted on the wall below the window. Without any reflecting layer behind the radiator, heat loss is significant. With a reflective (and insulating) panel fitted heat loss is lower. In this particular example, the panel used was a ‘Reflecta’ panel, manufactured by Pan Manufacturing Ltd., and costing approximately £6 per radiator. However, if custom-made panels are not available, it is possible to achieve significant energy savings by using ordinary household materials such as kitchen foil glued to a sheet of corrugated cardboard.