Radiator fans

Rattusnorvegicus

Cirrus1 said:

Thanks for sharing Rattus. It is really interesting that without the fan it takes so long to raise the room temperature and with it you can achieve 4 degrees in one hour. It spurred me on!
Yesterday we had -7 degrees for most of the day. It took 4.5 hours to achieve a rise of 1.5 degrees. I moved the fan to under a radiator closer to the thermostat and propped it up on some blocks. It has been in place since last night. Today we have -4 degrees and it has taken about 2 hours to get the same temperature rise!

The fan must be drawing the cold air into the bottom of the radiator and speeding up the convection process. I went around measuring the air temperature at various points and it seems more uniform than before. With the Hive thermostat showing 19 degrees, the air in the middle of the room, near the ceiling is in the range 20-22 degrees.

It is interesting that you are blowing across your radiator, whereas I am blowing up my radiator (like the manufacturer designed). Your stats are pretty impressive. Optimising radiator convection does not seem common.

Last year I was not bothered about improving heating efficiency. Gas was 1/3 of the current awful price and it took whatever was necessary to get lovely and warm. It’s a complete paradigm shift to live in a few warm rooms and be chilly everywhere else.

Hi Cirrus1 , i'm so happy for you. Everyones building is different, so getting the most out of the radiator+fan combo is more of an ongoing experiment to find what works and what doesnt. I just use brute force i.e. big fan+vast airflow+airspeed to circulate 90% of the rooms air over the radiator as fast as possible. Heat rises, and call me mean but i prefer heating my flat, and not the one above.

The main thing is your warm, and seeing results. That always counts as a good day in my book.