Vertical Radiators + Plinthe Heaters

sooty&sweep

Hi

We're close to finishing an orangerie extension to our open plan dining kitchen.

Our plumber is suggesting Plinthe heaters & vertical radiators.

I've Googled plinthe heaters & I can see that they can run off the central heating or electricity.

Vertical radiators are obviously tall thin radiators. My concern is how effective they'll be as the heat will be up high.

Any advice ? Anything I should consider ?

Cheers

Jen

maddogb

I am going to find out shortly as I have just replaced my bathroom radiator with a vertical column one that is over half the width but has the same btu rating, will let you know when it goes cold

Furts

You need to look at the kW output of the radiators. You could be in for a shock on the vertical radiators - they can be low output and also very expensive for the little heat they give out.

Whether your extension to an open plan kitchen meets Regulations is one matter, but keeping to radiators it is likely you will need a big heat output because of the heat losses with the orangerie. Vertical radiators are likely to fail here.

ComicGeek

Depends on the radiator style as well. Hudevad or stelrad flat panel vertical outputs have good outputs, and can be made as larger units. More decorative vertical rads can have low outputs.

Your plumber should be calculating the required total heat output for the room (existing plus extension), and then you can look at options for providing this.

Personally I don't like plinth heaters as they can be noisy. I probably would have looked at underfloor heating in the extension with additional vertical rads as required, as wouldn't have been enough by itself.

kaya

vertical radiators are a daft idea, a radiator works by drawing in the cold air that sits on the floor and heating it up as it is drawn up , a wide radiator has more surface area near the floor so can effectively draw more cold air up and heat it , a tall narrow radiator can't do this as it has very little surface are near the floor so its more of a fashion statement than an effectively designed heater. We have a plinth heater that is connected to our central heating system and automatically switches the fan on when the heating reaches a certain temperature , its effective but also noisy as previously mentioned, personally I would shell out a few extra quid and have a central heating fired underfloor heating system fitted if you aren't past that stage of build already

sooty&sweep

Thanks all,

I don't want plinth heaters if they're noisy.

We didn't want to go for underfloor heating because we're having an engineered oak wood floor put down.

I am suspicious of vertical radiators because I wonder how effective they'd be at heating the whole room rather than just the top part of the room.
Although I've seen some with a btu of 10000 so they surely must have some impact ?

Part of the building work we're doing is putting decent insulation through the house which should hopefully also make things better.

Cheers

Jen

andyhop

Vertical rads work, as you have seen there are some high output

Try to buy aluminium radiators to, the heat output compared to a like for like steel item is much higher to due it's better thermal properties

Furts

sooty&sweep wrote: »

Thanks all,

I don't want plinth heaters if they're noisy.

We didn't want to go for underfloor heating because we're having an engineered oak wood floor put down.

I am suspicious of vertical radiators because I wonder how effective they'd be at heating the whole room rather than just the top part of the room.
Although I've seen some with a btu of 10000 so they surely must have some impact ?

Part of the building work we're doing is putting decent insulation through the house which should hopefully also make things better.

Cheers

Jen

I always think manufacturers quoting btu for output is nonsense. People can picture kW simply by thinking of oil filled radiators or 3kW maximum from an old electric bar fire. So all radiators should be considered in kW terms.

You quote 10000 btu, but if you look in Screwfix - as a typical supplier - the vast majority of vertical and designer radiators only achieve a quarter to a half of this figure. 10000 btu is a huge exception to the norm, and will probably come at a huge price.

badmemory

Try looking at model Tallos from another typical supplier. I've got one which I have for a few years now. It works really well & has more surface than conventional flat radiators so gives off a lot of heat. It's great for leaning on too when you come in from the cold!