The Top 5 Things to Look for When Buying a New Radiator

Is it time to buy new radiators? If so, you need to read this article. Here, we are going to explore the top 5 things you should be looking for when buying your new radiators. Paying attention to these things will help ensure you buy the best radiator for your needs.

Heat Output

It’s a radiator, so obviously you need to look at its heat output. After all, that’s the whole point of buying a radiator.

Before you buy any radiator, whether designer radiators, traditional radiators, or even underfloor heating, you must ensure that you know the heat requirements of the room.

To do this, you need to use a BTU calculator. These calculators are available for free use on most radiator retailer sites (and you can find one by following the links in this page). They are easy to use. All you need to do is complete a few questions and the calculator will return a BTU figure. You simply match this figure to the output of the radiator.

Material

Material choice is largely irrelevant but you will find people arguing about which is best. Nonetheless, radiator manufactures do not make radiators from materials that do not function adequately.

For this reason, you will find that most brands of radiator will use one of four metals: aluminium, cast iron, chrome, and stainless steel. There are some slight differences, but they are marginal.

Efficiency Rating

What is much more important than the material type is the efficiency rating. This will tell you how much the radiator will cost you to run if you want it to run to its desired heat output setting.

When buying a radiator, make sure that you consult the manufacturer’s energy efficiency rating. Anything above A is relatively good.

To ensure that the manufacture is being honest with their ratings, always buy from a reputable retailer and manufacturer. In the UK, we are governed by certain standards and the manufactures must adhere to them. Therefore, to ensure that you are buying a product that has been genuinely tested, try to stick to retailers that are based in the UK.

Guarantee Length

The length of the guarantee is a great way to assess the quality of the radiator. A radiator that has a guarantee of more than 5-years is likely to be of a good quality. The best radiators have as much as 20-years guarantee and they are relatively common.

However, the longer the guarantee, the more expensive the radiator is likely to be. This isn’t too much of a problem if you plan to stay in your home long term as it just means that you won’t have to replace the radiators very often.

Style

Finally, once you have paid attention to all of the above, you can then start to think about the style of the radiator. There are thousands of designer radiators in the UK, so there are plenty of options.

I hope that you have found this article useful and that you now have a good understanding about the things you should be looking for when buying a new radiator.