Radiator News

Managing your heating system and keeping it at maximum efficiency requires a simple but effective process… You just need to bleed your radiators on a regular basis. This is far easier than it sounds, all you require is a radiator key and a small container for water.

Sometimes the bottom portion of your radiator is warm while the top portion is cold or circulation around system is inconsistent. One likely explanation is air trapped inside one of your radiators and this prevents it from working properly. It could have a knock on effect and disrupt the whole system. Primarily the trapped air, whether partial or complete, stops the radiator heating up and doesn’t produce the required output.

To start with the central heating system must be turned off. You’ll need to have a bleed key to bleed a radiator (these can be obtained from Simply Radiators). Generally the bleed valve or vent is positioned at the top of the radiator and has a little square screw. Insert the bleed key into the bleed valve and turn it counter clockwise. Don’t turn it too much; a half a turn is usually enough.

As you turn the radiator key, the valve will open and you will hear a hissing sound. This is completely normal and is simply caused by the air escaping. Once water begins to leak out of the radiator, it is time to close the valve. To do so, turn the bleed key clockwise for half a turn. You can then move on to the next radiator that needs to be bled before turning your central heating radiator system back on.

When you bleed a radiator, keep a container and rag handy to catch the water that drips down. If you have a sealed heating system, be sure to do a pressure check and add water if needed. Once you’ve done so, you are finished and may turn your heating system back on. Store your bleed key until the next time you need it.

One hundred and fifty years old and there is still some debate as to who actually invented the radiator. On the other side of the pond the American William Baldwin probably gets the credit, where as the Italian Born German Franz San Galli who built the first cast iron radiators in Russia around 1855 then patented the design in Germany, is seen as the inventor in Europe.

If the question of its origin is still open – its growth is not… In the early Twentieth Century, with the aid of mass production, it would provide central heating for American homes and certain well to do homes in this country. But the technology took considerably longer to filter down to the average home over here, nonetheless it was used extensively in civic and commercial buildings around the UK.

With the advent of affordable gas boilers in the 1970s, radiator sales grew steadily in the UK; becoming a basic requirement for most homes by the early 1980s. The UK’s the last comprehensive survey stated that only 7% of this countries homes have no central heating.

Of course, there have been vast improvements in the use of material’s and production along the way; with designer’s constantly trying to find a new perspective.  Most people buying radiators today would also have access to a huge range of finishe’s and colours, a company like ours has constant request’s for new colours; quite often with very curious names. Enormous amounts of radiators are available today and with endless variants,  valves and vents.

And yet even today, it’s still essentially the same piece of Victorian technology, with it’s basic principles pretty much unchanged and doing the same old job. Perhaps you could point out that most look very different from those knocked by William and Franz. However when anyone walks into our showroom, whether they are interested  vertical designer radiator or a double panel, single convector; they are generally drawn at some point to the ‘cast iron’ radiators…

So William and/or Franz did something right, perhaps we should seek adjudication from Harry Hill.