Are skirting board radiators as efficient as ordinary ones?

[KatyMac]

Looking at things like this www.discreteheat.com/thermaskirt/products-and-information/overview.aspx

For my new lounge

Bump

I'd love to know if it feels just as warm. Saw this being installed at. Butlins resort a while back.

They're infrared, which means they are entirely electric not gas whereas most central heating radiators would be gas (much cheaper than electric). Infrared does not warm the air only the objects in direct line of sight, this means that the warmed objects then emit some warmth and this results in a warmer space. Most central heating systems are the other way round. This can be very effective if you have a draughty house as you aren't losing warm air before it can hear the furniture, but also anything that is behind something else won't get warm (think of how cool things are in the shade when the sun shines).
So whether it will work well would depend on your house lay out, your fuel options amongst other things. But if you have gas don't switch to electric unless you have solar or similar to make up the difference in higher price.

I know @iloveyankeecandle they look so good

Sorry no, @CleopatrasBeautifulNose these have hit water pipes running through them (or at least the ones im looking at do) so they are effectively a very long narrow radiator

@CleopatrasBeautifulNose
Sorry again it says infr red but the guy I was talking to said pipe so now I'm confused!

We have thermaskirt in our lounge/kitchen/diner. Generally we like them, they’ve freed up walls that were otherwise hard to use (eg for sideboards) because of the radiators.

They have 3 pipes running through from the boiler, so work similar to a radiator.

However, they didn’t entirely work for us because we couldn’t put them around all the walls (eg there’s none in the kitchen or on the wall where the chimney stack is), so we don’t really get enough heat from them. But that’s not really their fault, it is a massive space and we simply couldn’t fit enough of them to heat it.

As a result we put one radiator back in to help make it warmer more quickly in the mornings, and now it works well.

They were an expensive way to lose the radiators, but I love the look of the room compared to beforehand. We’d have them in every room if we could afford it!

So yours is water from the boiler like a radiator @SlipperyLizard ?

Our room is 8m by 3.5m but only 4m of that is lounge the rest is kitchen and we are having a radiator at the pointing. How big is your room?

They are expensive to fit and the low output means you need a well insulated house with enough wall space.
We looked at them but realised several short but wide radiators per room would be cheaper and more effective. And you can run the boiler on a really low temperature for efficiently, which means they don't damage furniture that's in front.

I dont like the "expensive to fit " bit - eek!

Yes @KatyMac they’re connected to the pipes that previously served the radiators. My husband fitted ours so no cost to that, but it depends on how handy you are.

Our room is massive, it was a living room, kitchen & conservatory but we knocked through into one big space with a new vaulted roof over the conservatory & bifold doors (we have a thermaskirt strip across the bifolds). So it is a big sort of L shape maybe 8m by 12m along the L, plus a small (unheated) utility room. But we probably only have thermaskirt around half the perimeter, if that.

My husband has been filling in draughts left by the building work recently, perhaps without them we wouldn’t have felt the need to refit the radiator!

If the system is supplying heat by hot water in pipes then that is not infrared and it is not radiant heat it is convection (despite using the name radiators for hot water central heating).
This type of heat is all about the surface area, so long and low could have similar surface area to traditional style and take up less wall space. Sounds nice.
But I would consider what kind of walls they are going on because if the walls are uninsulated external cold walls you might find that the long low heat is more adversely affected by the cold walls than a traditional style hot water radiator. Partly because the convection heat will be taken up by the wall before it can circulate round the room just by being a cold wall, but also because it is affixed straight to the wall with no gap so a lot of the energy will be conducted out of the room directly and never felt. (Convection and conduction being two different ways that great moves)
Personally I wouldn't put this system in unless you have really well insulated walls as you will lose so much to conduction otherwise.

Hi @CleopatrasBeautifulNose
Sorry to jump in but ThermaSkirt is a radiant infra red heating system whether it's a water or an electric version.
The electric panel market have done a good job of convincing the market that only electric radiant panels produce infra-red; that's simply not true.
Every warm surface emits infra red; a radiator, you, me the cat: everything. Just look at the infra red camera videos on our website.
We have a reflective foil behind to minimise heat losses into the wall but you are right about insulation being key to any heating systems overall performance.
We are working with some of the biggest housebuilders in the UK including Barratts Bellway and Taylor Wimpey as well as the NHS and Butlins. They simply wouldn't be using us if we didn't offer them energy and space savings as well as aesthetic improvements against a radiator.
We have installed over 70,000 systems in the UK and export to over 12 countries
Sorry for jumping in @KatyMac ; I have been on Mumsnet for many years and from time to time Google sends me alerts.
I respond only when there is misunderstanding or miscommunication about my company product or service.
Kind regards
Martin Wadsworth
Founder & Managing Director
The DiscreteHeat Co Ltd

That's ok we decided our (probably 80s) kitchen extension wasn't insulated enough anyway

Had them when we moved in. Not very efficient so removed them.

Sorry to hear that @Nonotmeagain
Did you contact our technical team for advice.
By 'efficient ' what do you mean?
Barratts have just spent 3 years testing the efficiency of ThermaSkirt against underfloor and radiators.
Guess what? ThermaSkirt came out best and now Barratts, Taylor Wimpey, Bellway and others are working with us.
We also work with NHS and recently Butlins as well as hundreds of clients you probably haven't heard of and with more than 70,000 systems installed. If it wasn't efficient, I doubt it would be sold in over 12 export markets just on its looks alone.
If it wasn't warm enough was the system getting hot? Was the boiler working correctly? Was there enough fitted? Could you have fitted more or used our bigger skirting panels? In 15 years we have rarely disappointed clients.

Sorry to hijack your post @KatyMac . I have been on Mumsnet for many years and I receive Google alerts from time to time about ThermaSkirt.
I will post if there is a misunderstanding or a miscommunication about my company product or service.
Hope you don't mind.
Warm regards
Martin Wadsworth
Founder & Managing Director
Discreteheat.com

@W4D I'm considering having it retrofitted in our victorian high ceilinged lounge. But it's not so straightforward. We have underfloor heating here and we need an additional heat boost primarily to combat the cold spots round a bay window and external walls (uninsulated). We thought your system might be the solution. We'd have to opt for the electric version (due to UFH) but we can't remove the skirts (part of them is buried in the screed/UFH) and I've been told we would need an additional room thermostat (we already have a heatmeiser for the UFH) wiring in. So we have challenges - who can we talk to to work through solutions (if any exist) at your company? is there anyone who can come to us to see the challenges we face at first hand?