Skirting board heating

Bexm

Hello!

I have recently been to a show and seen this seemingly marvellous idea called thermaskirt, which is your heating in your skirting board.

My new house has no heating what so ever and I'm wondering if anyone has tried this therma skirt stuff and could tell me whether its expensive to run or has any other reviews.
Our new house is a small, 2 up 2 down, with a small conservatory.

Thank you in advance

Bex

cheghead

we have a small 2 up 2 down. Have a gas fire in front room and kitchen and use 500w skirting heaters from Argos which we find heat the rooms enough. Much cheaper than getting central heating installed!

https://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4150145.htm

Bexm

Hi

Thanks cheghead. That could be an idea, just a few little heaters like that.
This therma skirt stuff is actual central heating, all plumbed in etc, just instead of radiators, you have skirting boards.

How much does it cost to run the electric heaters? I know it says 500w, but what does that actually mean? whats the comparison like to say gas central heating (as we have in our rental property)?

cheghead

Bexm wrote: »

Hi

Thanks cheghead. That could be an idea, just a few little heaters like that.
This therma skirt stuff is actual central heating, all plumbed in etc, just instead of radiators, you have skirting boards.

How much does it cost to run the electric heaters? I know it says 500w, but what does that actually mean? whats the comparison like to say gas central heating (as we have in our rental property)?

About 5p/hour to run. As a comparison I suppose you could say if you had central heating installed at say £2000 thats a lot of 5p's. Also you don't need heating in the summer so can always put the heaters away or take them with you if you move. Could connect to timers if you want controlled heat. We find they give enough background heat for a 12 x 12 ft room in the winter.

Cardew

Bear in mind that there is no more expensive way of heating than by using electricity at daytime rates.

Doesn't matter what type of electrical heating as they all give out the same amount of heat for the same power consumption.

dc

Bexm wrote: »

Hello!

I have recently been to a show and seen this seemingly marvellous idea called thermaskirt, which is your heating in your skirting board.

My new house has no heating what so ever and I'm wondering if anyone has tried this therma skirt stuff and could tell me whether its expensive to run or has any other reviews.
Our new house is a small, 2 up 2 down, with a small conservatory.

Thank you in advance

Bex

I have had skirting radiators for 25+ years, very pleased with comfort levels, and they are no more expensive to run than conventional radiators . The advantages are that being a finned pipe running around the external walls they take up little space, and dont prevent furniture being pushed against the walls. They are more convective than radiant and so the heating is more dispersed. We were warned about discolouring of walls but this has never been a problem. The only problem of sorts is that in the living room because of its size, the radiator has to be fitted to two walls to get the required heat output.
If I had to do it again I probably would, after comparing it to underfloor heating, and checking that it is OK with condensing boilers. Condensing boilers require a much lower return water temp to operate in condensing mode, ie at highest efficiency. Skirting heating by nature is just a finned pipe run around the house perimeter, so very little restriction on flow will mean that the pump will have to run slowly or be restricted to achieve this.

HTHs dc

Bexm

Hi DC adnevery body

Thank you all so much for your input!

DC, this therma skirt claims to be different from the type of skirting board heaters that you have mentioned. Apparently it's a "new" version.

Is there a specific brand that you have or is it some sort of standard "skirting heating"?

Thanks

Bex

dc

Mine is Finrad, output for single finned pipe ( similar priciple to car radiator fins) is 570watts per metre. Heat output is regulated by an adjustable flap at the top which reduces air flow over the finned pipe I dont even know if they still exist, but others did them including Myson. There have been a lot of amalgamations/take-overs in the heating industry so its googlin' time.;)

Cheaper on pipework, maybe?, as the pipe runs are the radiators. No lifting floorboards for pipe runs, just drill a holle in the wall to continue in next room.
One thing I forgot to mention was that we have conventional rads in the kitchen and bathroom where wall space is limited. Did think of building it into the bath panel tho'.

Modern equiv. is climaboard, http://www.climaboard.co.uk/, looks very similar to Finrad which originally had a wooden top, which was replace with white enamelled one and were about 50 mm deep x 200mm high. This is smaller 150 x 30mm, and at 300w/m is about half the output of mine.

Thermaskirt http://www.discreteheat.co.uk/how_it_works.html, replaces the skirt completely as it is a radiator only and does not need to have an air gap at the bottom. Will possibly require longer lengths. I like the cable concealment faclity, but still wish we had cellars like the Yanks for all the utilites. My only concern is that it is aluminium and therefore more prone to corrosion and electrolytic reaction.

Similar http://www.heatprofile.co.uk/NewFiles/home.html

Seems like double Finrad is still popular for heating on boats.:rotfl:

dc

Forgot to say one advantage is the low water content of the system,resulting in a much faster warm up time.

Mine has less than 20 litres even with 2 conventional rads. A quarter the water , so four times quicker to reach the design temp.

A second concern having slept on it, is, if the return pipe is in the aluminium casting, then the incoming (flow) will tend to reheat the outgoing ( return) colder water. This would mean not all heat would get to the radiator surfaces and by increasing the temp of return would also reduce the possibility of a condensing boiler operating in condensing mode. I suppose if the return pipe was the lower one the heat transfer would be reduced, but not eliminated.

dld2s

Bexm,

did you ever get this skirting heating? I am looking to get this myself, but i'm wondering if it was any good and any problems with it,
cheers

I-ty

Bexm,

Did you ever get to your skirting heating? We're looking at getting some heating in a house and are seriously considering it throughout.
How hot can it get compared to regular radiators?
Is it safe to touch (with regards to kids)?

Cheers