Orangery - New Solid Roof but still not warm enough. New Radiator won't hold up

[KinderEggg]

Hello,
We have a orangery. Its quite big.
It used to be freezing in winter so we got a new roof fitted. It was warmer but still not warm enough. Therefore decided to change the radiator (180 x 59 cm) to the same size but double panel with a BTU of 7000.
Posted the job on checkatrade. Plumber interested and we asked him to come see the job but he said send pictures. Accepted the job.
He's come and has said the wall won't hold up the radiator as its plasterboard and the radiator won't hold up. He tried longer screws to get to the brick and a copper method (not sure ?!) but still no avail.

I don't know what to do. I really liked out glass roof and i wish we got a flue gas fire instead of the roof but here we are.

We now have a wall with loads of holes and a orangery that still cold and putting money into it to make it warmer that we can't afford or guarantee a warmer room. The radiator would have been the ideal option.
We already have underfloor heating which doesn't seem to do much.

Any suggestions?

Floor standing/supported radiator, or new pipework to a second radiator.
Another option is to fix plywood where the radiator will go and fix the radiator to that.
As an aside the orangery is unlikely to comply with building regulations hence why it's so cold, normally it would be not allowed to add a radiator due to it being classed as a waste of energy.

We have building regulations for the orangery. We bought the house and it already was here. We got new regulations when we added the roof.

Having it carpeted or using large thick rugs makes a noticeable difference to the feel of our conservatory.

We had a huge radiator hung on an internal plasterboard wall. No way would the plasterboard have held it so he cut a hole at the top and bottom where it would be hung, constructed a bit of a frame in between the studs to spread the weight and fix to and then put the plasterboard back in place and skimmed over it. Didnt take too much effort and tbh didnt take long either. We obviously painted the repair after.

Maybe a glass panel radiator ?

These are fairly lightweight so could be more easily attached. You could get a 2kW one. It will be expensive (60p per hour?) but you will be able to control the heating much better than with a gas radiator.

As an aside, I don't understand why your plumber can't mount the radiator. They are very heavy, but radiators are mounted through plasterboard and into brick all the time. Unless it is a stud wall, in which case you might have to either a) mount it to the studs or b) rip out the plasterboard and put in some sort of bracing.

Could you get a floorstanding column radiator instead ?

Sounds like you need a better tradesman. There will be a way to fix the radiator to the wall.

So I am assuming you got someone like a Jack of all trades?

He was a newish plumber who suggested this but couldn’t do this himself. He just thought it’d be a straight swap.

The radiator weighs 58kg without water.

They do weigh a ton.

I fitted one on my third floor and hauling it up the stairs was not a pleasant experience and fitting it was quite hard because of the mass. It does sound like your guy was a bit inexperienced though at fitting them. Any fitter who knows his job knows they are heavy and have to be mounted into the brickwork and has strategies to do that.

A glass panel would weigh about 10 kgs and of course would not add on an extra 6-7 kgs of water when full up. They are cheap and you can fit yourself. You also have the advantage that you will be able to turn it on without heating the rest of the house, so if your orangary has different heating requirements to the rest of the house then they are useful - for example my conservatory gets much colder than the rest of the house, so often I want heating just on in there but not the rest of the place so it is good for that. They look swish as well.

But .... because they are electric the running cost per kwh is high if you run them full on a lot. But to turn them on at night to prevent the plants freezing for example, they are absolutely fine.

A floorstanding column I'm sure you could find if you are worried about the wall taking the weight and want to keep costs down. They do tend to be a bit more pricey though as the designs are considered a bit more fancy than the simple double ones you buy from screwfix.

radiator feet

Is it an internal wall? Would be surprised if one side isn't brick or breeze block. But yes if purely plaster board it is u likely to hold up with out a holding frame inside the wall it can then be screwed into. We had the same with a bathroom radiator.

An Orangery with building regulations would suggest a much more permanent structure than a conservatory which are essentially a temp structure and heating them is flogging a dead horse. We demolished ours straight away on buoying the house and had a proper extension built which included a sun room element which is warm as toast in winter