Radiant Heat

[newlegz]

I'm renting a pretty old house this year and the heat set up is radiant heat / radiators in every room. I'm just looking for any how-to tips/ tricks for keeping my house warm in what looks to be a very cold winter.

Also, I've heard I can set a board on the radiator and use it as a shelf but does anyone know if I can leave that board on the radiator when the heat is on?

Thanks

 

[emap]

Said board on the radiator in the winter is a really bad idea, they get really hot to the touch. Serious fire hazard there, it is possible however to use the radiator as a stove top if it goes up far enough, simply put a frying pan on it and fry eggs or bacon or whatever. It however takes longer than an actual stove.

As for keeping the heat in and the cold out, well shutters on the outside help, closed of course. If they are not on the house go to home depot or lowes or whatever you have nearby in the way of a hardware store and buy plastic sheets, they have a special kind I think simply buy that and a stapler and then take it home cut it to oversize of the window and staple it in, the overlap toward the window. The say you want to use planks of wood and nails to cut down on the leakage but if you go staple mad and have extra folded in you will not have an appreciable difference on leak protection and you can take it down for the summer if there is no air conditioning.

Go up into the attic if there is one, if the insulation is thin or holey you will want to buy more. It's easy to put in taking out the old is harder cause you gotta clean up afterwards all the way through the house. If there is no attic and the roof is simply there they have an insulation paint I think you will so want to get some. Also go up on the roof and look around, if there are any spots without whatever they call the roof stuff you will need to buy more and replace pronto. That stuff is a second layer of insulation and a water protection, any weakness and you get drippage.

Oh if you don't want to do the plastic method, buy sealant go around the entire house and reseal every window. You may not know this one, but when you have radiant heat you tend to restrict yourself to one or two rooms, turn any rooms that are open to the rest of the house to low any closed off rooms you don't need to off and stay within like your bedroom and living room. Never ever turn any room you are not staying in above low, radiators get really hot and are a fire hazard.

 

[Cattypuss]

Put some tinfoil down the back of every radiator, to act as a barrier between it and the wall that reflects heat back into the room.

Wear extra clothes

Radiators are the normal way to heat a house in the UK. Probably 95 per cent of houses are heated that way.

 

[newlegz]

Thanks for the tips. I had already done the indoor window plastic...that was fun with the hair dryer.

Still waiting for the radiator to get hot to the touch, maybe we're not on the same page. My grandfather seems to believe that it will be fine, but not sure how well he remembers that though.

Going to try the tinfoil thing it sounds like it could work.

 

[CherryBomb24]

i've never known radiant heat to be very good.

do you have any kids?

 

[Cattypuss]

Perfectly normal for radiators to be hot (rather than warm) to the touch. It's fine.

 

[newlegz]

No kids. Its me and a few roommates. And so far as long as the door to my room is closed I'm nice and toasty. The living room and dining room are pretty cold but we rarely use those.

 

[jtf71961]

Radiant heat is expensive, but if you live in an apartment you might get a little heat from the other units around you. When we were first married we lived in a 8 family apartment and didnt even have to have the heat up real high.

 

[bambikiller]

The ideas above are all good except a board on the top of a radiator will not catch fire. I don't know where they're from but I've never seen a radiator get that hot. Even steem heated radiators don't get that hot and some of those will burn you if you touch them. It will warp the board and restrict the heat coming from them though.

If it gets too dry in there in there you can add humidity to the room by putting a bucket of water with a rolled up news paper in it to add moisture to the air.
It smells a bit but it does the trick. We did that when I was a kid.

Ok heats on it's the middle of the night and Bang, Knock, Bang you start hearing all these noises. It's the radiator pipes they have air in them you need to bleed them. Look for a very small valve with a spout on the radiator, see the circle with the hexigon inside of it. Buy a key at your small local hardware store, they will know what you need.
Open the valve on all the radiators untill water comes out.
Then close it. You'r done.

Radiant heat is not exspensive to run, if it's an old system which I'm sure it is the yeah it's exspensive but any type of heating system thats old is going to be exspensive to run. Now lets talk about a new 90+ prestige Solo 110 modulating boiler, some new insulation and those windows are real leaky I'll set up you up right.

 

[newlegz]

Thanks everybody. Seriously any little tips/ input that I could use are very appreciated!

My Grandfather gave me the heads up that the board should be fine. Our landlord wants to be the one to take care of the air pockets. Its at least 55-60 years old. (We found a few old newspapers). I had fun w/ some plastic sheeting and my hairdryer on the windows and I'm feeling great. We've got the temp set at 60 which is ok for me even though my roommates think they're tricking me into buying a space heater which they all think are the answer to everything. They also wanted to run space heaters 24/7 and never use the heat all winter. (Yes I know how dangerous they are and there is no convincing them about that)

 

[Vixandra]

Thanks everybody. Seriously any little tips/ input that I could use are very appreciated!

My Grandfather gave me the heads up that the board should be fine. Our landlord wants to be the one to take care of the air pockets. Its at least 55-60 years old. (We found a few old newspapers). I had fun w/ some plastic sheeting and my hairdryer on the windows and I'm feeling great. We've got the temp set at 60 which is ok for me even though my roommates think they're tricking me into buying a space heater which they all think are the answer to everything. They also wanted to run space heaters 24/7 and never use the heat all winter. (Yes I know how dangerous they are and there is no convincing them about that)

Some space heaters use a ton of energy too. I can't count the number of times the newer one I have tripped the circut breaker in my house, blacking out a room. It sucked last time because it was the computer room that I shut down.

Low wattage is your friend. And ALWAYS keep an eye on them. Never leave them unattended.

 

[hatsoff]

2 words. Penguin blubber. I assume you are living in a cold region, because of your situation. We'll you're in luck! Penguins also live in cold regions as well. If you would take the time, go around and look for a large group of penguins, during their nesting phase and coax them into your house. Not only are you giving them shelter from natural predators, but their blubber will be keeping heat from escaping from your house. Not to mention, if you are single, these little critters will be a welcome asset to your arsenal of interesting factoids about you in this site. Because, while most people will have music, movies, or shopping as their favorite interests, you will be one of the few to have penguin insulation.

 

[The_Irishman]

...wow. That was... ...Incredible.

 

[newlegz]

Penguins eh? Thanks so much for the advice. I love snarky people who try to feel good about themselves by dismissing others. You're hysterical.

 

[unregistered]

 

[culloden]

I have a side business as a home energy consultant. How houses are heated and insulated is one of the most myth-ridden aspects of modern life. Here's a quick brain dump and some links for good information.

Radiant heat is a term that confuses people. What it brings to mind in the South is different from what it brings to mind in the North. Radiators can be heated with hot water, steam, or electricity. Except for those heated by electricity, there's no danger whatever in placing a board atop the radiator.

Heat's heat. It doesn't matter if you have radiant heat (which is the gold standard in New England) or forced air. In fact, water and steam based radiant provides a more efficient heat transfer than the forced air systems most Americans are used to. In particular, hot air ducts often run through the attic, where they lose a lot of heat in what is essentially an outdoor space. Hot water pipes are almost never run through unheated spaces like attics, so you don't get the same accelerated heat loss. Yes, most of the time new ducts are insulated, but only to about R-8, which isn't much.

Electric radiant heat has a bad rap for being expensive, but that depends entirely on the cost of electricity where you live. If you have low kwh rates, electric heat can be dirt cheap.

It doesn't matter how you get the heat - more insulation is nearly always better. But insulation can be expensive and difficult to add in an existing house. The low hanging fruit is air sealing. Plastic on the windows can help, but you should also look for big holes in the ceiling. Hot air rises, and it creates a higher pressure zone at the upper ceiling levels, which causes the air you've paid to heat to leak out. Keeping conditioned air from leaking out at the ceiling is the most cost effective thing you can do to improve thermal performance in most houses. Doing so also helps to avoid ice dams on the roof. Typical big leakers are attic stairways and whole house fans. You can buy rigid foam kits at Home Depot and Lowes for covering these up. Just throwing batts of insulation over them doesn't work. Fiberglass insulation allows air to flow through it readily - it's what we use for air filters in cars.

For more info on air sealing and insulation, go to affordablecomfort.org, nesea.org, or buildingscience.com.

 

[culloden]

More info:

Putting aluminum foil behind the radiator, if we're talking about the old style, tall steam or hot water units, can actually help a little, but only if there's an air space between the foil and the wall and if you keep the face of the foil shiny and clean. It might be better to pick up a piece of 1/2 in. Ultra-R foil faced insulation at the big box, cut it to fit with a knife, and slip it behind the radiator. But in either case, we aren't talking about a huge boost - certainly in the single digits if you're talking about a percentage decrease in heat loss. That's not to say it's not worth doing, just don't expect magic.

 

[newlegz]

culloden YOU ARE AWESOME!!! Thanks so much for sharing your knowlege!!

 

[username_69]

My recommendation is to find a guy (or girl if you swing that way) to snuggle with for many hours.

 

[jadefirefly]

I'm actually intrigued by the tin foil idea myself. This is my first winter living in an apartment with radiators (I grew up in New England with air-blowing heat vents) so I'm a little leery of these sudden new-fangled inventions!

 

[rockojenkins]

if you've got radiators just make sure you have them on for extended periods of time, ie like between 5 and 9pm, not like 5-6 then again at 9-10. that won't build up any heat in your house.
also just try keep your doors closed inside the house, reduce airflow between rooms will allow you to build up more heat within the rooms.

 

[WriterDom]

I'm renting a pretty old house this year and the heat set up is radiant heat / radiators in every room. I'm just looking for any how-to tips/ tricks for keeping my house warm in what looks to be a very cold winter.

Also, I've heard I can set a board on the radiator and use it as a shelf but does anyone know if I can leave that board on the radiator when the heat is on?

Thanks

Great legs!