Today, November 1st, marks National Radiator Day in the UK, a celebration of the essential role that approximately 200 million radiators play in maintaining warmth in homes across the country.
As more low temperature heating systems, such as heat pumps, are in-stalled, heating engineers have an increasingly important role to play, ensuring their customers’ radiators are suitable, as MARC director, Stewart Clements, explains.
“Heating engineers have a vital role to play,” says Clements, “advising consumers on how important it is to insulate their homes to increase the efficiency of low temperature heating systems, such as heat pumps.”
“Once any remedial work has been done, they can carry out heat loss cal-culations to establish what outputs are required. This means that their radiators, even while still on a gas boiler heating system, can be run at a lower temperature and are more energy and cost efficient. And, if they are not yet in a position to move to a heat pump, their heating system is fu-tureproofed and ready for when they want to make the switch.”
The MARC web site includes a useful heat calculation tool and provides guidance for the heating engineer when advising on and specifying radia-tors. There’s also a consumer guide for buying the right radiator that they can share with their customer.
When replacing radiators or installing a new heating system, it’s im-portant to check the radiators carry the CE mark, as this means they con-form to the European Standard BS-EN442. This demonstrates that the product has been independently tested in an accredited testing laboratory and conforms with all the legal requirements to achieve CE marking.
This legislation is designed to ensure heating engineers, specifiers, architects and consumers can fairly compare the heat outputs of one radiator against another so that they can choose the right fit for their project.
Manufacturers who are members of MARC are committed to providing products that are CE marked and include the correct heat output for all the products they advertise. Their details can be found on the MARC website.
