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Radiator taking up valuable space - alternatives?

10 replies

Anne75D · 05/10/2020 15:08

We have a lovely room that unfortunately lacks space and one of the walls is almost completely taken up by the radiator. I've been trying to come up with a solution to get back some/all of that space to be able to put up some decorations, lighting and maybe even get some extra storage.

We need to replace the floors soon so I thought underfloor heating might by a solution but would that be quite expensive?

I thought another option might be a radiator cover that could also function as a cupboard/shelf. My worry is that the heating won't be efficient if the radiator is covered. What are your thoughts?

Any advice or ideas are very welcome :)

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Guymere · 05/10/2020 17:51

We converted radiators to underfloor heating (wet system). It’s perfectly possible. Most of my ground floor is wet underfloor heating and it certainly frees up walls.

It has to be installed properly (Nu Heat I think ours is). You can then have Engineered wood flooring. It’s much nicer than laminate. It’s a stable wood floor that works well with underfloor heating. You can also use ceramic tile flooring.

I don’t see anything wrong with tall panel radiators. But they take up a bit of space. They are not cheap but cheaper than underfloor heating installation. You would get a lot of wall back for storage and just get a smaller mirror!

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NachoNachoMan · 05/10/2020 17:29

There's loads of ideas on Google actually.

Radiator taking up valuable space - alternatives?

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NachoNachoMan · 05/10/2020 17:27

I saw the other day, possibly on Facebook Marketplace, a custom built unit which was a radiator cover at the bottom with a bookcase on the top. Obviously it would need to be fastened to the walls. Would something like that work?

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Africa2go · 05/10/2020 17:10

I'd also say column radiators. If you have old single fin (I think thats what they're called), column radiators can be deeper (3 or 4 rows of columns) so you'd get the same amount of heat from a narrower but deeper radiator. If depth is also an issue, I'd recommend the tall column radiators too - if its a question of compromising by taking the mirror down and putting it on one of the other walls, wouldn't that look better? I think radiator covers are really dated now (that's from someone who has one in the hall and skipped it only today!)

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Anne75D · 05/10/2020 16:56

@TynesideBlonde

Were going to need s floor plan with sizes to know the BTU of the radiator you require and to identify possible alternative sites for it. You can get tall climb radiators which include a mirror for example

Thanks. Unfortunately, there aren't any alternative sites to place it - we'd have to keep it by that wall. There's a large mirror above the radiator so a column radiator wouldn't work either sadly as the mirror would then need to be moved.

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Anne75D · 05/10/2020 16:50

@MrsJamin

We have underfloor heating on our whole ground floor, it is brilliant, retains heat so well and we really like that it frees up our walls. The main cost is the main unit though so it'd only really be worth it if you put it in multiple rooms - and if you've got floorboards it won't really work either. You can get vertical radiators but I'm not a fan of how they look tbh.

We'd only be using it for that room and the kitchen (whenever we will get the new one installed). I didn't think about the floor material - does it work with parquet or laminate? We've not yet decided on the floor but it wouldn't be stone.

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Qc16 · 05/10/2020 15:57

A tall column radiator doesn’t take up much space - they can be colour matched to your decor.
We have Zehnder radiators and some of those are about 1.60 tall.

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TynesideBlonde · 05/10/2020 15:34

Oh, and the usage of the room affects how hot it needs to be - bedrooms cooler than living spaces etc so consider that too.