Skirting board heating

[Caspianberg]

Does anyone have skirting board heating already, and would you say it is good?

We really need to remove our radiator in the kitchen as its currently blocking any cupboard doors from opening where it is, and we could really do with that space to add a freezer.

The radiator is currently 120cm long x18cm wide. Room is approx 4mx3m. thers no other wall space due to kitchen cabinets, and two doors in and out room

Underfloor is just working out far to expensive and not really possible as its a concrete floor above a cellar space, so no leway to remove any.

Needs work with a water based system

Do you actually have enough wall to have enough skirting get the heat output?

Consider a plinth heater as an alternative / addition.

@Rollercoaster - I don't know. The doors are basically in the middle of the room so it would only be on one side. The length it could go would be 320cm x 110cm. Current radiator is a triple radiator.

Atm we have kitchen units one side of the doors, and the dining table, radiator and small narrow unit on the other side. Its quite a small space for kitchen and dining combined.

The narrow unit is just a regular thin sideboard, not kitchen unit, so around 40cm wide. Has microwave, toaster etc ontop, and rubbish storage underneath. I want to make this a floor to ceiling until containing fridge, freezer (currently don't have as no space), and food storage. But the 60+cm doors won't open with the radiator in the way.

skirting hearing has a very low output power metre, if you need a triple rad at the moment then you'd need something powerful replacing it.
I think you'd need one big or maybe two standard plinth heaters to manage it. They are pretty cheap although they are built to a price so aren't the most quiet of beasts

Hmm, I don't really want the plinth route. We had in a previous flat and they were extremely noise. I work a lot from the dining table so I don't think that would work

I was looking at the DecoBM3 option on here. It would be a water temp of around 50 as heat pump.
www.discreteheat.com/technical-data.aspx

So 100w per metre so if you can do 5m with no instructions that is 500w. That might work in a brand new house, but your existing radiator would be a couple of kw or more and if it's correctly sized your room would not be warmed by the skirting unless you have 6 rows all up the wall!

We went with a vertical in our awkward kitchen (same size, also concrete floor) - went from a long radiator along the long wall to one up the wall - didn't even have to move the pipes - would a vertical work somewhere? Maybe not quite the same place?

@TreestumpsAndTrampolines - Vertical wouldn't work as the window is above where the radiator is and that is the only free wall space.

Theres main kitchen area along one wall, a fitted corner dining bench and table in one corner, and then the thin unit tht wont fit a larger without changing radiator in the other corner. Then a large window above radiator, door into kitchen, and double door to balony. So literally no free wall apart from where it currently is.

@johnd2 - the radiator is old. No idea how old but probably 70s as house hasn't been touch really since then until we bought recently. So its probably not the most efficient. The walls are thick though (thick solid walls, with 20cm insulating facade), and windows all double or triple glazed. Theres a cellar below though which is unheated.

Do you consider UFH without raising floor level? We have done ours a few weeks ago and I think it's very good. Radiator-free home much better. We did it on the concrete floor and channels were cut into existing floor. Then only self-levelled screed on top plus adhesive and tiles. We ended up with the same level as we had carpwts on.

I'm just installing some in our baby's room. Initial impressions are that it seems to be the quickest room to heat up in the house (quicker than previous radiator). Also its fairly low temperature to touch. Not completed cosmetically yet as I've had some diy issues but we're already reconsidering doing our lounge with it (discounted before due to cost).

Any plumber or competent diy person will have no problems installing.

@skylarka - is that the type where they carve channels into the concrete? do you know what it is called? I have seen it at a home show in the past, but not sure if its available here.

@Puckdrop - which brand have you used so far?

@Caspianberg and @Puckdrop, yes channels are created in this way. We have used JK Floorheating. They are absolutely fabulous. We have dealt with Allen and it was the best customer service I have ever experienced in the UK :)

We got a vertical radiator in this instance

@skylarka - interesting. We aren't in the uk, but they do offer a service where we are in mainland Europe so maybe I will get in touch with them

I'm using thermaskirt. Fairly straightforward. Most of the work is repairing our crumbling mortar when we tore the old wooden skirting off lol.

Could you also insulate the ceiling of the cellar below? It makes quite a difference to heat loss.

@Caspianberg highly recommend :)

@VondaVomin we did not need to as we don't have cellar plus we are in the new built house so we had floor insulation too. I guess whichever company you deal with they would be able to advise.

We could insulate cellar ceiling from below if needed. But at the moment piping runs across it for water and heating so would have to move (which may be done anyway with new heat pump)

The inside of house is currently very toasty so atm, heating is sufficient for the house, hence not wanting it to get worse by changing radiator to something less powerful. Its currently 23 degrees indoors, and -6 and snowing outside.

On a heatpump! Wow - I was planning on one when we buy a house, but that's definitely sold it (and it rarely gets that cold where we are)

200mm insulation and triple glazing your heat loss would be pretty low so skirting heating would probably be alright.
A trick you could do is switch over to a similar size radiator and if it still heats the room ok then switch over to the skirting heating. That might save the upheaval and cost if it's not enough.