New Radiator. What does the blocker do in the radiator please?

happyhero

Hi I bought this radiator


http://soak.com/300x1190mm-white-four-panel-horizontal-colosseum-radiator--roma-premium_p31238915.htm


and amazingly it lined up with my old valves, one being a TRV4 valve but these radiators look symetrical in every way as if the could be put in upside down or back and front reversed. The thing is they have labeled the connections inlet and outlet and they were opposite to what I needed my flow and return to be so I emailed the company and asked them if it mattered which way I connect these apparantly symetrical radiators and they said yes because the radiator has a blocker inside. They say if I push a screwdriver in I will feel it. They said front and back can be reversed but inlet and outlet should not be altered.



During the time I was waiting for a reply which was longer than I expected (a few days) I decided to go ahead and connect it up ignoring the labels and see how it performed and then only go through all the hassle of getting my floor up to reverse pipe flow and return if really needed. Well it seemed fine but I could not be sure if it was performing as well as it possibly could as I would want it to do in our cold 1930's house.


So it seems I can just reverse my radiator to solve the problem but what does the blocker do then?


If you look at the link there are several pictures available and one of them shows a diagram with a blocker marked up but it does not show which end that will be, would it be at the inlet or the outlet as I would like to double check everything if I'm going to mess about with it all again to connect it correctly.


Since it seems to be working ok does it matter about the blocker, surely it does something?


Any help/info appreciated.

Alter_ego

Surely if you reverse the front to back you would also be changing end for end?

molerat

^^^ What he said ^^^^ Possibly some sort of flap valve to prevent reverse flow in some systems ? If the radiator is symetrical and, unlike a conventional radiator, bracketless you fit it whichever way it says.

chrisw

Alter_ego wrote: »

Surely if you reverse the front to back you would also be changing end for end?

You would, but that means it will work in situations where the direction of flow, ie inlet and outlet pipes, are the opposite way round.