Replacing old radiators

[Crewood]

Hello all,

I find I have to remove a large old stlye radiator from my living room to get rid of a sludge build up from the inside, is it worth considering replacing the radiator with a newer, hopefully more efficient one at the same time?

My old radiator has two panels with nothing but fresh air between them and measures 1765 mm long (top extreme edges of the panel).

I looked on previous threads for help but most on this topic were dated in the early 2000s and I'm not sure how the technology has changed in recent years.

Regards....Mike

[John Stumbles]

It hasn't :-)

A new rad with convector fins will have higher output for the same size so you can reduce the size of the rad for the same output (and reduce further still if your house is better insulated than when the CH was installed, but worth checking the heatloss calculations to see what size your really need rather than guessing.) However any new rad will (with

101% probability :-)) not fit the spacing of the pipes for your old one so you'll have to do some replumbing to fit it.

[Dave Gibson]

You can get nice chrome plated hex extension pieces to screw into the inlet/outlets of your new rad to make up the difference. They are available in a range of lengths up to 3" IIRC so provided you choose the correct width new rad and calculate the extra you will require all will be fine. They are available at any plumbers merchants and are quite cheap.

Dave