So you want a new radiator but can't move your pipes?

So you want a new radiator, but can't move your pipes?

We've all been there. You've got a nasty old radiator in a room you're about to do up. Immediate thoughts as a quick fix go to radiator covers. Don't go there. Honestly. Firstly, they're a false economy, costing up a couple hundred pounds for a made to measure unit and then you have to put a bazzillion coats of undercoat on it or that crazy expensive MDF primer. You're talking £250 plus whatever time its taken you and to top it, you'll be lagging the radiator behind it and either not getting any heat into the room or turning everything up to compensate. Not great.

Onto option number 2. New radiator. We have a great range. One problem that can arise is that the range of radiators you like aren't the same size as the old one. On the surface, this seems like an insurmountable problem. In reality, its very easily solved with some careful selection and a few additional bits.

Firstly, if you're looking to replace a towel rail, these can be a little more tricky than a standard radiator as most towel rails have downwards facing connections. This means that the connections are situated at the bottom of the vertical bars, and as such the pipework will need to fit exactly both width and out from the wall. Fortunately, many manufacturers are starting to make their products using a uniform sizing system, so something should be available with a little digging around. We're happy to do the digging for you.

If you're looking to replace a radiator, then odds are you'll have to make a new radiator fit. With a few simple rules, this can be made to work in an elegant way and few people would even notice you've retro fitted to existing pipes.

Firstly, the  most important rule is to size the radiator smaller than the existing one. Only slightly and if its almost the same size then all the better, but larger doesn't work. You'll need to move or heaven forbid bend the pipes to make it work. A slightly smaller radiator can be made to fit by changing a couple of parts in the valves. Valve extenders come in a  variety of widths from 15mm to 70mm and upwards and look like this:

Quite simply, all we need to do is use a slightly smaller radiator than the one in situ. In most cases, this will solve your replacement radiator woes.

Please feel free to give us a call on 08450 580 540 or 023 9269 6622 or email Sales@RadiatorShowrooom.com and we'll be happy to advise.

It Drives Me Up The Wall!

Don't worry, I'm not upset about anything. I want to talk about vertical radiators. Up the wall. Geddit?

I want to take you on a little trip back in time. I was born in the 1970's (actually 1970 to be exact. I could have potenially knocked nine years off my age by leaving it as it was, but I'm not wearing well enough. Heh.). Those who are of a similar age and a bit older will remember watching the old John Pertwee and Tom Baker episodes of Doctor Who.

In our nostalgic recounting, watching this series with its various monsters and aliens we seem to have embraced this idea that we would be so scared by these characters, we would 'hide behind the sofa'. Its almost become a prerequisite for evidencing you were there. "Oh I remember the Daleks, but it was the cybermen that really scared me!" Incidentally, we also only remember two breeds of monster which should only serve to illustrate how suspect our memories are. 

Sorry, I need to get this back onto the topic of radiators. My question is who lives in a house with living rooms sufficiently large to accomodate hiding space for scared children nowadays?

More importantly, are our rooms smaller, or is it that we have less room because our living rooms have more in them? I think the answer lies in both. This causes problems when we want to put radiators in. 40" T.V.s are the minimum and if one can squeeze in two three seater sofas, then we will. Don't forget your kids also need sufficient space for the XBox Kinect sensor to work properly. All this additional occupancy means one solution when it comes to radiators. Go up. Or stick the radiators behind the sofa. At least your small children will be warm when Doctor Who is on....

Vertical radiators make for a perfect solution in our increasingly cramped living spaces. Three main reasons for this.

1: Vertical radiators make use of the dead space above the height of a dado rail (unless you really like hanging pictures more than warmth ;) )

2: Because they are very pleasing from an asthetic point of view, vertical radiators are usually hung in more prominent places, thus allowing heat into the room. 

3: Because many are produced in sections or elements, a vertical radiator at 1800mm high with 6 sections is invariably less expensive than its horizontal counterpart. 

Whilst they are mostly available as contemporary radiators, there are some in traditional styles. The best thing to do is have a look around the website or pop into the showrooom. We've got plenty on display and even more available to order.  

  

What's In A Name Like Designer Radiators?

Hi everyone,

A slightly off topic post that I wanted to talk about. In our rarefied industry, we are expected to market ourselves in a number of ways to architects, specifiers, plumbers and to the end user. The easiest method for us to get our wonderful products out in the public domain is via the internet, which on its surface is a very easy thing. You put your product up on web pages and hey presto, everyone sees them.

I wish things were that simple. Building webpages is a very small part of getting new products out there. Firstly, those new pages have to be on a website that is seen by people. Its obvious, but getting a website seen is not always an easy task. Not only does it have to be seen, it more specifically needs to be seen by the right people. So who are the right people and how do we get our stuff in front of them? Basically we use what is known in the world of Search Engine Optimisation as 'keywords' or 'keyphrases'. These come in myriad varieties and its all about what our customers are searching for.

The most common and obvious phrase for us would be 'radiators'. Or so you'd think... The thing is, we don't sell radiators in the normal sense. Pressed steel panel radiators are something we can easily obtain, but in all fairness, you'd be better served to ask your plumber to organise these for you as he will be able to buy them at the local plumber's merchant at the same price and you wouldn't have to fork out for carriage charges for us to ship them to you.

We specialise in 'Designer radiators'. Wooo! What is a designer radiator? In its simplest definition, its a radiator that's trendy, fashionable, painted in a fun or funky colour (actually, any colour other than white and sometimes, even white. Ha!), vertical radiators, stainless steel radiators, traditional radiators, cast iron radiators, and so on. The phrase Designer Radiators was coined years ago and donesn't really mean anything apart from 'not a normal radiator', but that's not quite as catchy. People use these phrases to search for radiators and we have to squeeze into the text on our pages all these words so you can find us. The very fact that you're here reading this is most likely because you typed something in to bring up a search engine (probably Google) result showing a link to a page on our website.

Many people know how all this works and from our side, we have all kinds of tools and programs to analyse who arrives on our website and how it all happens, but the reason I've written this post is because I'm interested in your feedback.

I'd like to ask you if you can send an email (don't worry, we don't harvest email addresses for spam purposes) to us with the word you typed into Google which brought you to us. If you've found this page and are willing to do that for us, we'll take £10 off any order you place with us over £200.00.

Please send to keywords@RadiatorShowroom.com We look forward to hearing from you.