RE: Homemade Radiator (Was: Swish @ B&Q)

[Keith Doxey <ukha.diyha@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Keith,

Welcome aboard.....

I'm a little confused by your homebrew radiator design.

You are putting the hottest water (flow) at the to of the radiator which
means the ceiling will be toasty warm in no time at all. The pump will have
to counter the natural convection forces in addition to pumping all the
water with no gravity assist.

Wherever you locate your temperature sensor, it will detect that you have
reached your desired comfort setting when the floor level is still much
colder.

Have you considered "baseboard" heating or underfloor. When I
move and get
round to having central heating, they are the options I will consider.

As to moving radiators away from windows, AIUI the original concept was to
prevent draughts from leaky windows. If you have double glazing there
shouldnt be much heat loss through the glass, if you dont have double
glazing then surely you want to draught stop as many of the leaks as
possible and then warm any residual breeze to stop cold spots.

If you move the radiators to other parts of the wall then surely you lose
that wall space because any object in front of the radiator (eg Sofa) will
restrict the heat dissipation.

To maximise heat dissipation to need to maximise surface area, hence the
fins on a car radiator.

Maybe I have missed something really obvious, but I dont see how your
radiator design will have benefits other than being more artistic than a
white radiator.

Keith (the original one!)

-----Original Message-----
From: keithwwyse@xxxxxxx [mailto:keithwwyse@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2001 23:22

This is a little OT, but my plan is to make new radiators entirely
from 15mm copper pipe sprayed matt black, switched back and
forth ladder style, but mounted vertical with the supply at the top
and the return at the bottom (counter flow heat exchanger).
Reflective and insulating enclosures which maximise the output
into the room could be decorated and made a feature of
(modifications for shelves, hanging pictures, sculptures etc)
Care should be taken with pressurised water systems (mine is not
at the moment)