Beautifying the Radiators - picture

[sleepyhoglet]

I am buying an Edwardian semi and it has standard radiators. As part of redecorating I was hoping to change these to traditional radiators. Is this fairly straightforward for a plumber to do? Like the ones pictured

It's pretty straightforward, especially if you can find new radiators the same width as the old ones.

If the new ones are different your plumber will need to modify the pipework, which will be more difficult. With a suspended floor of old school floorboards, this should be reasonably easy to do (but you'll be left with a hole in the floor where the old pipe was).

If the pipes are buried in a solid concrete floor, or plastered into the wall, or appear through a tiled or quality wooden floor then you could have a difficult repair job on your hands if you want it to look good - likely not within the skills of many plumbers.

That's super helpful- thank you. Upstairs the vendors have laid nice engineered wood floor so wouldn't want to mess that up but downstairs is floorboards so could def change some of them.

You could get radiator covers instead. They look nice.

Do they? And don't they eat the heat?

@whyohwhyohwhyohwhywhy

Do they? And don't they eat the heat?

We had them in this house when we moved in and it was awful, they trapped all the heat and so cost us a fortune in heating! Made a fortune selling them on martketplace though, people love them apparently!

I have them. I don't notice a difference to my bill. But with the energy rise, every little helps. I live in a terrace so some rooms are akways warm. I love how they look.

Radiators come in so many different widths now, it's totally possible you can have them changed without having to touch the floor at all. The ones you're looking at are lovely.

I'd rather change the radiators than have covers for some of the reasons above. I actually like the look of the traditional so that is part of the reason for doing it and in some rooms there are three radiators under a bay window so not easy to cover anyway

I actually have those radiators from bestheating. They are great radiators and look good in. the plumber had no issue taking out old and putting those in. Plus bestheating deliver quickly.

Jali do great radiator covers, which you can fit around whatever you want. The don't use up heat either and better for being able to place things on top!

Consider matt black for slightly better efficiency.