This Week

There is much happening this week and whilst we won't be finished by Friday, as the project clock suggests, we should be much closer to knowing how close to completing by the end of the month we will be.

Without trying to put the kibosh on things, by the end of the week we should have a bathroom installed (although not working), a boiler installed and commissioned, a kitchen delivered, tiling completed in the bathroom, all plastering finished throughout (except the kitchen), the under stairs cupboard finished, the garden clearance completed, the cracked brickwork repaired (subject to weather) and a start on the downstairs decorating.

I probably shouldn't have said all of that. They will probably all walk off site now.

Radiator sizes

It is getting to the stage where I need to start buying some stuff and radiators are one such item. Easy enough I thought but what size radiators do I need? Obviously I will ask our plumber to advise but I do like to understand these things myself if I can.

Radiators are measured in Watts or BTU's (British Thermal Units) and there is a ridiculously complicated system for working out what sizes you need involving the volume of the room, number of outside walls, type of wall (solid, cavity etc), double glazing (yes or no), the aspect of the house (North, South etc), what type of room it is (bedroom, lounge and so on) your inside leg measurement, mother's maiden name and the number of pets you have.

I am convinced that this system has been made sufficiently complex and made to look like a dark art to stop the rest of us from trying to understand it. What makes it worse is that every different method of calculating you use gives a completely different result!

Room volume seems to be the biggest single factor in the calculation with the number of outside walls the room has being another important number. In this respect the house suffers quite badly as every room I need to heat has three outside walls. This seems to add about 40% to the calculation.

Radcalcs gets a lot of recommendation from various websites and is easy to use without being overly simplified. The only problem with this is that in one room it is recommending a radiator with 10,523 BTU's which is a very big radiator in quite a small room.

Ultimately I shall have to go with some common sense but I'll wait and see what the building control officer says during his visit tomorrow about insulation etc before making a decision.

If anybody knows of any other sites with a calculator I would be pleased to hear about it.

Incidentally my calculations state that the bedroom require 6546 and 7469 BTU respectively and the downstairs room will need 7294 and 10523. I know that Tim (see earlier comments) pointed out the downstairs toilet will be cold. Fear not; there will be a an electric towel rail / heater to take the edge off.