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Hot Property

With the winter months approaching, it’s time to make your home a welcoming haven with our heating guide.

Article by: Sophie Warren-Smith
Publish date: 6th November 2008

With so many ways to heat your home on the market now and increasing fuel bills, it's worth investigating what is best for you and your period property. Radiators are still one of the more obvious choices for heating and today sees a return to their popularity, especially reclaimed or direct copies of original styles. Almost reaching iconic status, they really add style and character to a traditional house. Read our guide on them and alternative ways to heat your home this winter:

RADIATORS
Early origins:
Joseph Nason, a pioneering American, came up with the first freestanding radiator design during the 1860s. It had a steam system with a single pipe connecting the radiator to a boiler. As the water got hotter, steam rose to fill the radiator and transferred the heat to the room. Later, in the early 19th Century, they became two-pipe hot-water versions and were introduced to larger houses in the UK during the century. Radiators were seen as a cleaner and easier-to-manage option than coal fires.

Design development
During the Victorian era, they really came to the fore, which went hand-in-hand with the use of iron as a decorative feature as seen in many homes of the period, but still only in the wealthier ones. Central heating in most properties wasnt installed until the 1950s and was still, even then, seen as a luxury. By this time, the design was becoming thinner, more often than not it would be white and less appealing, with function being key. Radiator covers became more popular over the years and the idea was to hide them rather than see them, which is still a favourable trend.

On show
Nowadays, we have almost gone a full circle. Reclamation yards and replica companies are being inundated with requests for traditional radiators. The sterility of plain white modern ones is now being replaced by the ornate styles of cast iron seen in all its glory.

What to look for
Many of the original reclaimed radiators didnt have valves, so make sure your salvage yard can get some for you that will fit. Alternatively, a company that specialises in reproduction models will supply valves with theirs and the radiators can be made to fit each room as you buy them in sections, rather than as a whole radiator, which is how you buy a reclaimed design.

Technical details
In order to work out the radiator size to buy, the BTU (British Thermal Units) needs to be worked out. Jackie Kilgallon, London Showroom Manager of Bisque explains: In order to calculate the number of radiators required to heat a room, you need to produce a heat calculation for the room.The amount of heat required will depend on a few factors, such as room size, number of outside walls and window sizes.You can use our heat calculator, which is available on our website at www.bisque.co.uk This will give you an output in watts and you can then compare this to the wattage given by each radiator, thereby calculating sizes and quantities for each room. You can then determine how many columns to have in the radiator each model has columns, which are the number of uprights in each section. For example, if you require a radiator for a small bathroom, you may only need a two-column design.

Perfect choice
The best place to position a radiator is often said to be the coldest part of the room, which is mainly near a window as Drummond Shaw, Director of Drummonds explains: This is for a good reason its where the draughts are... because windows offer the least insulation against heat loss. Applying the same principle, it makes sense to position additional radiators in places where the heat loss is greatest. For instance, the outside walls of the house, rather than the warmer internal walls.

The advantage these days is that radiators now come in all shapes and sizes, even in traditional styles, so you can have one to fit any area, from low, squat models under windows to large, but thin, designs for awkward spaces.

Different designs
Other column types to look out for are Victorian and Edwardian styles; both of which can be seen with ornate embossed patterns that were popular at the time, although the Victorian style is chunkier. Aside from column-style radiators, there are also the infamous school models. They were also common in hospitals and dont have columns, but are made from single, flat sections.