Dear all
Is replacing a rad simple?
We have a very thick double in the lounge that due to the layout has to be behind the sofa and therefore makes the sofa stick out a long way.
I was thinking of replacing it for a very slim and low one, so that the sofa can be pushed back almost to the wall.
Do such things exist, where can I get one, and is it a DIYable thing?
Cheers Ed
Hi Ed,
A few things to think about;
Bear in mind that, appearances aside, the point of the rad is to keep the room warm in winter. Assuming the current one does a good job at that you need to work out roughly what its heat output is and make sure that the one you replace it with is as good. If the current one doesn't keep the place warm enough you can do a heat-loss calculation for the room to work out what size rad it needs.
If your new rad is to have the same heat output as the old one, but you want it lower and slimmer then it's going to have to be longer. That means you will have to redo some of the pipework so that the pipes are in the right place at each end of the rad. That means you will have to drain down the radiator circuit and do some soldering of pipes. Is that enough to put you off?
Once you have your nice new slimline low rad in place if you shove a sofa up against it you will greatly reduce its heat output, especially if the back of the sofa is touching the wall above the top of the rad. Despite their names, radiators give of most of their heat by convection, and obstructing the airflow from the top of the rad will muck up its heat output.
Given that you'll probably have to do a bit of replumbing if you follow plan A, it might be better to adopt plan B and relocate the rad to a different place altogether. Maybe a vertical rad would work somewhere else in the room. Plan C: move the sofa.
Cheers!
Martin
Makes my lounge cold in the winter placing my sofa against the radiator. Its amazing the difference to room temperature leaving a small gap (4") makes, to allow the warm air to circulate out.
If you have reasonable DIY skills - drilling walls, fitting wall plugs and screwing heavy things (or brackets for heavy things in this case) onto the wall, plus a bit of plumbing - then removing a radiator and replacing it with a different one shouldn't be too daunting.
But, as Martin has said, your new radiator needs to have an adequate heat capacity to heat the room. If you replace a unfinned double with an unfinned single of the *same* size, it will only output about 60% as much heat as the original. If the new one is *smaller* as well as thinner, you'll get even less.
What size is the existing radiator, and does it have no fins, single fins or double fins? If you want the new one to be lower and thinner, can it be longer? You can get radiators 2 metres or more long - which might be the answer if you have the wallspace.
Unless the new rad is *exactly* the same length as the old one, you'll need to do *some* plumbing - which will involve a partial drain down of the system and moving/shortening/extending/whatever the pipes to suit. So you'd best be prepared for that if you want to do it.
If you tell us the size and spec of the existing rad, and the space constraints, I'll try to suggest something which might suit if indeed there
*is* anything.
You can get 400mm singles and 300mm doubles quite easily - screwfix do a 300 x 1400 double. It is DIYable, if you are happy to drain systems and alter plumbing pipework. You'll be extremely lucky if the distance between valves is exactly right. I have changed many radiators and, for a quick job, I choose the end that shows most and use the existing pipe/valve and alter the pipe the other end to fit. One can do a proper job by doing the pipe alterations under the floor but this is a lot of work. Pipes painted white along white skirting boards aren't too noticeable. As everyone else has said, you won't get the heating if the sofa is against the wall. You will have to pull it out 3" or so or resite the radiator or resite the sofa
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