Conservatory radiator

kheron

Hi hope someone can offer some advice. We have just installed an engineer in our conservatory. Struggling to keep this rad on long enough to heat it as the thermostat in the lounge knocks off the heating as this room is now at desired temp. We have purchased 2 tado trv’s so we can control the heating separately however it’s still not working greatly. To get the conservatory rad on the rest of the house is being heated too and it’s a pain having to run round turning off rads in all empty rooms then then them back on when we’ve finished work in the conservatory and want heat in other areas of the house. A neighbour has told me she has 3 rads in her conservatory but are not linked to her thermostat in any way and she just switches them on and off as desired. Also the heating is constantly switching on and off just now with the frost protect but it’s waking us up, heating the house up when we like it cool when sleeping and no doubt costing me a fortune. Anyone any ideas what I can do to try and sort this. Working from home and just need heat in the conservatory but stopped using electric/oil heater as was costing an absolute fortune 😳 thanks in advance 

Hasbeen

As you  have installed the Engineer in the conservatory ? can he not advise you?  

I would suggest if its a modern remote thermostat put it in there as well.

greatcrested

kheron said:

Hi hope someone can offer some advice. We have just installed an engineer in our conservatory. Struggling to keep this rad on long enough to heat it as the thermostat in the lounge knocks off the heating as this room is now at desired temp. 

I hope you are feeding the engineer, or does he have to phone for deliveroo?

Conservatories are not designed as 'habitable' rooms and expecting them to be heated to the same extent as the house is unrealistic.

Naturally, a system stat (as opposed to a rad stat) in the house will shut the system down when the house warms up, but it takes a lot more to get a conservatory up to the same temp.

Placing the system stat in the conservatory will mean the heating will stay on until the conservatory is up to the required temp, but this will result in the house over-heating unless all the house rad stats are set to turn off indvidually.

The alternative is to heat the conservatory separately eg by electric heaters when you are in there.

ps - this forum is for oil & LPG. Which heating system do you have?

Ectophile

I have seen a log burner installed in a conservatory before. It's one of the few things powerful enough for the job. (And it's also on topic for this forum).

You may have broken building regulations by installing a radiator from the house heating system.

matelodave

If you want to heat your conservator then the best idea is to do a heat-loss calculation based on the materials in its construction and I think you'll probably be horrified at the amount of heat that it actually needs to keep it warm compared with say a bedroom of equivalent size.So you probably need a pretty big rad to compensate. 

There are ways to control the radiator independently but it's something that you should have considered in the beginning as I guess the rad is just T'd into the exiting system rather than installed as a separate zone with it's own control and diverter valves to direct the water flow.

Possibly you could do this with the TADO set-up but it would need smart TRVs on all rads which could be individually programmed for both time & temp (presumably by the app). 

You also need a controller which tells the boiler & pump to switch on when an individual rad calls for heat so the TRV's must be able to communicate with the controller and not just the internet bridge.

Again it's something that needs planning to ensure that what you've got is capable of doing the job you want it to and is expandable if necessary in the future

greatcrested

I do sympathise. I have a similar problem. I have a 'man-shed' in the garden where I go to escape the mahem in the house and ran a ch pipe through the garden to a rad in the shed. Can I get it warm in there? Can I heck!

Mickey666

Might as well try heating a tent.  As pointed out, conservatories are not exactly ideal for keeping in the heat.  There are plenty of options but all will involve using a lot more energy if you insist on a conservatory being as warm as the rest of the house.
I have a similar problem in my workshop outbuilding but I find that suitable clothing goes a long way to making it comfortable to spend time there in the winter months.