I'm doing up the separate loo at the moment. Decided to replace the tiny rad with a towel rail fed from the central heating. More for looks than anything else.
Have one in the bathroom which is SS and came from TLC. So ordered up a smaller but similar one.
Then found I could have bought a chrome plated one from Screwfix for a lot less.
Have I wasted money?
"Dave Plowman (News)" snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk> wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk:
Stainless may be more robust - and it looks good - unless alongside Chrome and then it looks odd. A black radiator gives off more heat.
Depending on how much use it gets consider adding an electric element to dry towels when heating isn?t on. They aren?t expensive and easy to fit.
When I fitted my chrome plated towel radiator from SF I found that the chrome started to flake off everywhere I inserted a fitting - at the two connectors points for the valves and the two air release points. While cosmetically the missing chrome is insignificant it did indicate to me that the plating wasn't well bonded. However a few years later and with towels being placed on the radiator on a daily basis there is no further signs of the plating being damaged and no signs of rust as I've seen on other people's towel rails.
BTW my towel radiator came with a couple of valves which were totally crap. They were replaced shortly after the towel radiator was first fitted.
Don't forget in a small loo a towel radiator may/will be used as a convenient handle to grab to help oneself off the loo seat. Just make sure tat thewall fixings are really secure.
Knock down wall and combine loo with bathroom. Then you don't need another towel rail.
Why should the efficiency of a surface in absorbing light affect its efficiency in radiating heat?
Bill
Assuming the black is black in infrared too (it's possible, but unlikely, it's black in visible and white in IR) then the black colour is just one effect of a surface that is good at transferring radiation.
Both ways.
If you could have a surface that absorbed better than it radiated, or vice versa, you'd have free heating (or cooling). TANSTAAFL.
Andy
Because a guy called Kirchhoff said so.
williamwright snipped-for-privacy@f2s.com wrote in news:hu14m7Fpf26U3 @mid.individual.net:
See the specifications for radiators of the same sizes in different finishes. It is significant. Reflection must go inwards as it were!
As I recall, irrespective of the finish, due to the surface temp over 75% of the heat transfer to the room from a domestic radiator is via convection.
and wouldn't the silver coloured steel reflect all the heat back before it reached the black paint layer? :) :)
CH radiators will emit strongly in the long wave IR band:
A thick slice of Alumina is a good example of a material that looks white (good reflector) in the visible but is a strong emitter / absorber in the IR.
In very general terms a matt surface will absorb/emit in the infrared.
Most non-metallic surfaces are quite good emitters. Aluminium is a very good reflactor.
And of course its all bollocks because 'a black radiator gives off more heat' is not qualified in anyway. Bleach washes whiter.
Non black radiators will get hotter....
ROFLMAO!
Non black in visible, or non black in the relevant portion of infrared.
I can assure you they can be black in one and white in the other.
This is why heat sinks are often black,
Its all to do with emissivity and black body radiation
Because that's very, very basic physics. :-)
You possibly could design a surface that absorbs light well but does't similarly absorb heat (heat is next down along the em spectrum from light) but it would be difficult.
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