balancing radiators and infra red thermometer

[JJJ]

I notice Maplin have an IR thermometer on sale at £30 just now. Thought I'd buy one to help balance my radiators -- unless anyone's seen one cheaper???

[Slurp]

yeah up till the invention of the IR thermometer it's been impossible to balance rads.

[mike ring]

"JJJ" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I don't think you will see a cheaper one, certainly not enough to worry about.

I bought mine on a Maplins offer a couple of years ago and it was a fantastic buy, certainly balancing rads is a whizz.

Also frying temperatures, quick check if you've got bird flu, playing with the laser..... etc.

Get it while it's going

mike

[Nick]

Exactly what Mike said - got mine last time round for £29-50 or so ! Don't know how / why people bothered without one of these things... Excellent and very useful for all sorts of things including checking car/bike rad temp for possibly faulty stat or temp gauge..

Nick

[Peter Andrews]

That's a relief - I bought one yesterday and thought everyone was going to say rubbish! So far I've bored everyone at home by measuring the temperature of everything from a cup of tea to the walls...

Peter

[Andrew Gabriel]

Same here -- I bought a couple when they were £25, and gave one to my dad. Remarkably useful things, and also great fun. You'll be hard pressed to find another one as cheap as Maplin's, particularly with the laser pointer.

One of mine died after about 6 months, and Maplin had one failed attempt at repairing it, before giving me a new one.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Measuring temperature of walls/ceilings/floors on a cold day gives you an excellent idea where you are losing heat from the house by looking for cold spots. You can do the same from the outside by looking for warm spots. You can measure cloud temperatures (currently -35C over me, but often -55C at night). We have used them at work to check temperature of mains cables, plugs, etc. I've had a cat chasing the red dot round the floor (never let it point towards the eyes).

[Set Square]

You *could* do it without - as long as you had the odd three weeks to spare!