Designer Radiators - where to buy?

FrankGrimes

http://www.designer-radiators.com/mhs-bigone.htm

Just wondering if anyone has any experiences purchasing vertical/designer radiators?

I'm at the stage with my extension where I need to order two rads and due to their prominent locations and pressure on wall space we want to get nice looking vertical rads, hopefully something we can make a feature out of.

I've calculated we need roughly 9,000 BTUs between the two rads, and I think a 6,000, 3,000 split would be suitable. I've done some searching on the web and so far this one is our favourite, but it's pretty pricey.

B&Q do a decent looking one, named Zephyr, for about €500 and it outputs around 2,700 BTU so that plus a 6,000 output would do us grand, though the budget is €1500 for the pair.

I'm wondering if anyone has any rough prices of what they paid for a decent looking 3k or 6k BTU designer rad, and if anyone had any success buying online.

Muchos gratias.

ScottishDanny

Beware of <snip> designer rads - my mate who is a plumber and replumbed our house informs me that they are junk and corrode easily. Needless to say I took his advice but if anyone out there has bought them and recommends them let them speak...
He was called out to fix <snip> Designer rads that had been in for a year!

BaZmO*

Check out.... http://www.bisque.co.uk/selectorch.html

Arcon Heating and Plumbing in Rialto [(01) 454 1384] are the agents here in Ireland. Be warned though, they're not cheap.

Neverends

Barlo vertical rads (see http://www.discountedheating.co.uk/shop/acatalog/copy_of_Quinn___Barlo_Opus_1_Range.html) are available from Chadwicks within a few days and I find them nice and not too expensive. They are great cos take up much less floor space than the horizontal ones and look more interesting.

311

I got a brochure for a mate and the fancy rads where working out at 2K sterling .

Do-more

Have you considered fancoils as an alternative to rads? Look here http://www.lowenergy.ie/solo.html they are Irish produced and they have introduced some nice new designs lately including the modular design which is hidden in the wall. AFAIK Heat Merchants stock them.

FrankGrimes

mmm, no - I hadn't heard of fancoils. How do they work as compared to a normal radiator?

Something from the Solo Discreet range might be suitable for one of my rads - whats the rough price range on these?

Do-more

FrankGrimes wrote:

mmm, no - I hadn't heard of fancoils. How do they work as compared to a normal radiator?

Something from the Solo Discreet range might be suitable for one of my rads - whats the rough price range on these?

Fancoils work by convecting heat rather than radiating it, basically it's a thin tube coil with fins which the hot water passes through and a small electric fan blows the air across the coil distributing the heat to the room. The Solo's have an inbuilt thermostaic control and are very good at maintaining an accurate temperature in a room. When the fan isn't operating virtually no heat is emitted. They are particularly good for heating conservatories which are notoriously hard to heat. (and to spell!)

Afraid I don't have recent prices, but a quick call to Heat Merchants or Low Energy should sort you out.

BaZmO*

Do-more wrote:

Fancoils work by convecting heat rather than radiating it.

Well in fairness, radiators work in the exact same way. They convect the heat rather than radiate it. Something like a 90/10 ratio in favour of convection if my memory serves me right. Convectors are just more efficient.

FrankGrimes

Are fancoils very new? Just wondering why I'd never heard of them. I'd love to see a site with a comparison between fancoils and normal rads.

In terms of installation is there any difference or will the fancoil just use the same 1/2" pipes I'd run in with the intention of using them for normal rads? And is it okay to have a mixture of fancoils and normal rads on the same circuit?

BaZmO*

Right, I think theirs a bit of confusion here.

A fancoil, a convector and a radiator all work off the same principal, they convect heat, i.e, hot water goes into the steel casing and it is convected into the air on the principal that hot air rises, hits the ceiling, travels across the ceiling and room, cools down and then drops, therefore creating a circulation of heat. Eventually all the room becomes equally heated.
That's why underfloor heating has become so popular in recent years because there's no cold spots with UFH as the whole floor is heated and then the heat rises to the ceiling creating a more comfortable heated space.

Now, with these type of heaters the more surface area that you have on the panel obviously the more heat will be emmitted from them, that's why higher output rads have those fins/corrugated steel bits at the back, likewise some of the convector types that have a thin tube coil with fins.

The main difference between a radiator and a convector is that a convector has a small fan inside the casing to help with the circulation therefore making the unit more efficient.

A Fan Coil Unit is basically the same as a convector (heating wise) but it also has chilled water pipework going to it so that you can use it for cooling down the space in summer. Normally it's ½" for the heating pipework and ¾" for the chilled water pipework.

Fan coils units are normally used in big office blocks and the like, and they can be floor mounted (like a rad) or usually ceiling mounted (like an Air Conditioning Unit). They've been around for yonks.

The link provide above Do-more is for Convectors and according to the specs sheets they have to be piped with ¾" pipework.

Hope this helps.