British summers can be a truly wonderful time, but, let’s be honest, for most of the year, heating is a fairly major consideration regardless of where you live. That being so, it’s good to combine function (warmth) with a touch of style, which is why traditional radiators have remained popular, especially for period homes. Here is a quick guide to buying one.
NB: In case you were wondering, there are online BTU calculators on the net, but you may want to double-check the results of their calculations.
Depending on your purchase your radiator may come with or without a valve. Without can actually be good since it allows you to choose a valve which both looks appropriate for your bathroom and also performs well. Thermostatic valves cost a little more than their standard counterparts, but they help to finesse the timing system by ensuring that even when the heating is set to be on, it will only use as much energy as necessary.
It may come as a surprise to learn that radiators can actually be made out of a wide variety of materials, so let’s run through some of them quickly, starting with the ones you’re least likely to want to use, at least for the time being.
In theory, glass is a great material for radiators and using a glass radiator can really help to make a small bathroom look more spacious. The problem is that right now glass radiators are extremely expensive (starting at about five times the cost of an aluminium radiator) and though they are very efficient to run, the differential in the upfront cost means that you will be waiting a long time to recoup the difference and, depending on when the radiator is replaced (and your heating needs), you may never do so.
Stone and in particular marble is becoming a popular niche material for bathroom radiators. It’s a natural material with good heat-retention properties. There are, however, two reasons why the use of stone is likely to remain a niche market for the foreseeable future. One is, again, price and the other is weight.
It’s also worth pointing out that while, in principle, we love the idea of recycling/upcycling and generally salvaging period pieces, when it comes to genuine Victorian radiators, it’s challenging, to put it mildly, to judge their real-world capacity and due to their age it’s very easy for them to develop tiny leaks which can be difficult and time-consuming to spot, let alone repair and if you do have problems with them, generally speaking, you’re on your own. If you buy a cast iron reproduction, you will probably avoid these issues, but you’re still left with the length of time it takes them to heat up. Basically, we’d say that these days, if you really want the full Victorian route, we’d go down the bath of a good reproduction, but frankly, for ourselves, we’d rather have a traditional look and a more modern material.
Aluminium has long since taken over from cast iron as the material of choice for radiators and can be used successfully for both contemporary and traditional styles. It’s much lighter than cast iron, a whole lot easier to install and has outstanding heat output. Aluminium also heats up much more quickly than cast iron, although the flip side of this is, of course, that it cools down more quickly as well. This, however, is probably likely to be a minor issue in most homes given that these days radiators will almost invariably be worked on timers and probably use thermostatic valves as well. One of the major advantages to having a traditional-look radiator made out of aluminium as opposed to a cast iron one, even a reproduction, is that it’s much easier to put it on for short blasts during “off-peak” times to keep the bathroom from becoming cold and hence to ensure that if anyone does want to use it at an unusual hour, they will be comfortable when doing so.
Heated towel rails can be useful additions to any bathroom and can make a whole lot of difference to the comfort of bathroom users. There’s nothing quite like coming out of a hot bath or shower and snuggling into a warm towel. At the same time, a heated towel rail, by itself, is unlikely to be anything like sufficient to heat anything but the smallest of bathrooms and even then you would probably need to leave the towel rail uncovered to allow the heat to circulate, which rather defeats the point of having a heated towel rail in the first place. If you’re short on space, you could look at traditional radiators with integrated towel rails or simply position a towel rail above the radiator (leaving enough space for the radiator to function) as a compromise solution.