Radiator manufacturer Stelrad is keen to set the record straight when it comes to some ‘misconceptions’ currently circulating about radiator sizing and compatibility with heat pumps versus the alternative options.
Stelrad is seeing its radiators being specified more and more for renewable heating systems as the popularity of heat pumps rises in the UK and Ireland. The company says radiators are still a popular and sensible choice as homeowners are familiar with how they heat their homes, and when properly sized, they are the perfect solution to share heat from heat pump installations.
Head of marketing, Chris Harvey, says the time has come to put things right and start dealing in facts: “Radiators work in very different ways to alternative heating choices, but they do a similar job, each with benefits in some circumstances. We want to put the facts out there for installers and homeowners to choose for themselves without being bamboozled into thinking there is only one option.”
“All radiators should be sized correctly for the rooms they are installed in and we offer a free radiator sizing and heat loss calculator on our website,” he says. “You will require larger radiators for a renewable, low temperature system than you would for a traditional boiler driven heating system because the water flow temperature in the system is lower. But that can mean a larger radiator possibly a vertical radiator, or one of our increasingly popular K3 radiators – with three panels and three fins –with the same radiator footprint for a room as a current K2 radiator, but with 50% additional metal surface to provide increased heat levels.”
Stelrad has invested in developing its range of radiators to ensure it can offer radiators that provide sufficient heat from renewable heating systems, a fact supported by the high number of new build developers that have already decided to stick with radiators as their key form of heat emitter and there are case studies to show how effectively this works.
Stelrad has also gone to the trouble of devising a specialist CPD for the business to provide facts and figures and evidence-based information to help installers and specifiers to choose the right products for their installations: “We’re suggesting that installers rely on hard facts and figures rather than misleading statements that are circulating in the heating sector,” Mr Harvey stresses.