How important is the BTU for replacement radiator?
Posted by darkazuria@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 9 comments
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Posted by darkazuria@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 9 comments
[removed]
InternationalRide5@reddit
What's the BTU rating of the existing radiator and is that adequate?
What sort of boiler do you have? Condensing boilers work more efficiently into larger radiators, and combi boilers are usually sized for the hot water load eg a 28 kW combi boiler might only have about 8 kW heating load on it.
In the future, bigger radiators needed for heat pump operation too.
Unless you have an old and fairly underpowered system boiler there is no risk of 'overloading' a boiler in a normal sized house.
darkazuria@reddit (OP)
We have a combi boiler that was replaced in 2022 so fairly recent.
The existing radiators are from the 1990s when the house was built so not sure what the BTU for those would be.
InternationalRide5@reddit
You can get an idea from any radiator website, just choose the size and type.
waveform06@reddit
If the calculators say X is enough, why would 30% extra be recommended?
darkazuria@reddit (OP)
I've heard a lot of people saying oversight zing a bit is better especially with vertical radiator. So thought maybe the smaller btu one might not be enough but then the other one is quite a lot higher
Bossman_Mike@reddit
It is possible to get a heating engineer to do a survey/consultation and provide some recommendations. British Gas offer that as a service and you can book online.
You don't want to go buying the 'wrong' radiator and discovering it makes no difference, or it's stressing your boiler.
bishibashi@reddit
Generally I’d prefer to run something at 60% than 100%, but the alu one is probably fine. Is your boiler up to putting that much through it is the other question.
darkazuria@reddit (OP)
You mean if going for the bigger radiator? Would I need to check if the boiler would work with getting bigger radiators when replacing?
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