Joining the Renewable Heating Hub forums is completely free and only takes a minute. By registering you’ll be able to ask questions, join discussions, follow topics you’re interested in, bookmark useful threads and receive notifications when someone replies. Non-registered members also do not have access to our AI features. When choosing your username, please note that it cannot be changed later, so we recommend avoiding brand or product names. Before registering, please take a moment to read the Forum Rules & Terms of Use so we can keep the community helpful, respectful and informative for everyone. Thanks for joining!
Increasing Room Temperature: Radiator Sizing Rule of Thumb Needed
Hello
I have a need to increase design temp of a single room from 18C to 20 C. Upstairs bedroom, 2 external cavity filled walls, 2 *18C adjacent rooms, 21 C room below, 300mm insulation, current rad 596W @50C.
Is there a rule of thumb I may use to estimate the output I need please? Not looking for accuracy just an approximation. I’m assuming most of the heat comes from the room below, but that’s already a bit warm for comfort.
thanks
Heat loss is proportional to Inside Temp - Outside Temp, its that simple if you ignore heat transfer from/to surrounding rooms. So if you design temp is -2 you need 22/20 times the output to go from 18 to 20.
However if most of the heat is coming from below and its already too warm for comfort then this wont apply, but if its already too warm why change anything?
4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.
That’s nice and easy, thanks, 10% ish. I have a 10% larger rad in a different room that’s a touch too warm, so I can just swap them over. Glad I checked, my gut reaction was to go about 50%.
Have an oldie in this room, it is meeting its design spec of 18 but he’s still cold. I don’t want to have to push the entire house +2 and be uncomfortable just to get one room a bit warmer. Did think about getting one of those thermostatic fan units that sit under the rads but figured it might be noisy and probably won’t give me the gain I need.
thanks for the advice, again.
Posted by: @papahuhuThat’s nice and easy, thanks, 10% ish. I have a 10% larger rad in a different room that’s a touch too warm, so I can just swap them over. Glad I checked, my gut reaction was to go about 50%.
Have an oldie in this room, it is meeting its design spec of 18 but he’s still cold. I don’t want to have to push the entire house +2 and be uncomfortable just to get one room a bit warmer. Did think about getting one of those thermostatic fan units that sit under the rads but figured it might be noisy and probably won’t give me the gain I need.
thanks for the advice, again.
Just one thought if you are cutting it that fine.
Do you keep the door closed? If not you may struggle to sustain the difference without the rad being much larger
4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.
@jamespa It varies as dad has some cognitive issues, the door leads to an unheated landing so that doesn’t help. I’ll edge it up to 20% then, we are about 400m elevation too, so technically -3C. Thanking you.
Posted by: @papahuhu@jamespa It varies as dad has some cognitive issues, the door leads to an unheated landing so that doesn’t help. I’ll edge it up to 20% then, we are about 400m elevation too, so technically -3C. Thanking you.
I'm presuming the lsv on this rad is open (or if not you tried that and it caused a problem elsewhere)
Good luck, maintaining temperature differences between adjacent rooms is always going to be a challenge particularly if doors are open!
4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.
@jamespa It’s the index rad on the system. They were balanced about 4 months ago with inlet and outlet temp sensors, I’ve been loathe to fiddle with any of the lsv or tsv since then as was previously having heat pump woes and am firm believer in never making more than one change at a time when problem solving.
I suppose because it is the index rad it won’t hurt anything to open up the lsv fully, I’ll have a fiddle in the morning.
(Heat pump has been amazingly well behaved all week, night and day. COP up about 0.5 units, getting combined 4.8 over last week, house temp very stable (deviation < +/- 0.2C) and warm 24/7, best thing has been the noise reduction. You wouldn’t believe how bad it was and how quiet it is now. Would never had thought an outside unit power reset could be transformational, must be so many in the same boat whom don’t realise. Homely needs to flag an error when this happens, I did contact them to provide feedback.
Posted by: @papahuhuI suppose because it is the index rad it won’t hurt anything to open up the lsv fully, I’ll have a fiddle in the morning.
Maybe mark where it was before you fiddle. However if it is the index rad/circuit the LSV should already be fully open otherwise you are unnecessarily restricting flow through the whole system
Posted by: @papahuhu, best thing has been the noise reduction. You wouldn’t believe how bad it was and how quiet it is now
Some of that may be because its warmed up!
4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.
@papahuhu absolutely correct, if you change 2 parameters, you cant prove which one made the difference. If you close a window and put the heater from 1 bar to 2, which caused the room to heat up the quickest/most
- 26 Forums
- 2,725 Topics
- 63.8 K Posts
- 1,101 Online
- 7,126 Members
Join Us!
Installer Finder
Degrees of Separation
Latest Posts
-
RE: Jokes and fun posts about heat pumps and renewables
@transparent I’ve heard that that is why American cars ...
By Toodles , 4 hours ago
-
RE: HeatGeek vs Octopus surveys: puzzling disparity - any ideas why?
Have either quote provided room by room heat loss calcu...
By Old_Scientist , 18 hours ago
-
RE: Heat Pump Servicing & Maintenance – Good Value or Rip-Off?
@old_scientist if you are going DIY then you may wan...
By Papahuhu , 2 days ago
-
RE: Indevolt Batteries UK Support & Info Thread
After a short while that was followed by the 'power war...
By JamesPa , 2 days ago
-
RE: Samsung heat pump - data cable issue
That's well done. Cable is the correct type (LIYCY = 2x...
By bobflux , 2 days ago
-
RE: Electricity price predictions
I agree, we will find out at the next budget whether th...
By Old_Scientist , 3 days ago
-
RE: Missing flow temperature in Heat Geek proposal
@editor I went through HG website, so should be ok for ...
By sttpd1917 , 3 days ago
-
Who did the Freedom Heat Pump cloud server and what did...
By Mars , 3 days ago
-
RE: Who's your electricity provider and what's your tariff?
Reading between the lines of what octopus are doing wit...
By JamesPa , 3 days ago
-
RE: Air to air bus grant installer anywhere
The through wall two hole ones have their place (listed...
By EtchedPixels , 3 days ago
-
I hope it goes ok, Hon can be hard to set up IF the sof...
By Graham Hendra , 3 days ago
-
@clockworks Hi, So there is a big difference between st...
By ASHP-BOBBA , 3 days ago
-
@editor wellvery comprehensive answer. I will get all i...
By Keithb , 3 days ago
-
RE: Advice on my Heat Pump Journey: Old Stone Built Detached Cottage
all good advice I will follow this up
By PaulC , 3 days ago
-
Heat of vaporization of water is 2.25 MJ/kg (0.625 kWh/...
By bobflux , 4 days ago






