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Radiator Booster
Read our Radiator Booster (and new Radiator Booster Mk2) product review
The Radiator Booster pictured above (and seen on BBC2's Dragon's Den) was a product designed to increase the efficiency of your central heating radiators. Sitting on top of the radiator, the Radiator Booster used energy efficient (1) fans to suck heat from the radiator and drive it into the room to be heated. This reduced the amount of energy wasted heating up the wall at the rear of the radiator, instead sending the hot air directly into the room to be heated.
How does Radiator Booster Reduce Energy Consumption
Since the room heats up quicker when Radiator Booster in operation, the thermostat will turn off the boiler used to feed hot water into the radiators more quickly, and so reduce electricity / gas consumption and save money. For optimal operation, it is recommended to turn down the central heating thermostat by a couple of degrees Celcius (saving 10-20% of current energy costs, or £50-100 per year in a typical home). Radiator Booster will then distribute the heat from the radiator into the room space more efficiently with the end result that the room is as warm as it was before, but at less environmental and financial cost.
Radiator Booster is particularly useful where radiator covers are present. Radiator covers prevent the free flow of air around the radiator (convection currents) and into the room to be heated reducing efficiency. Radiator Booster helps to counter this and save a lot of energy.
Powering Radiator Booster (Mk1 and Mk2)
The two fans in Radiator Booster are rated at <1 Watt power each and are powered via a 12 VDC mains transformer. Radiator Booster is fitted with a 1.8 metre lead, so you must have a mains power socket within <1.8 metres of your radiator (unless you use an extension lead).
Using a power meter (2) we measured the power consumption of the Radiator Booster (via the supplied mains transformer) at 3.6 Watts. Powering the Radiator Booster directly from a 12V battery (3) we measured the total power consumption of the fans to be 1.7 Watts. Therefore, the mains transformer is only 47% efficient wasting 3.6-1.7 = 1.9 Watts, but this is fairly typical for mains transformers supplying small amounts of power.
NEW The original Radiator Booster was recommended to be used for 6 hours per day. Assuming that radiators are used for 6 months or less per year, the total energy consumption was only around 4 kWh (units of electricity) which at today's prices is under £0.60 per year.
It was not possible to leave the original Radiator Booster on for 24 hours per day since the fans would have overheated and failed. Instead we recommended that a plug-in timer be used and programmed to switch on the Radiator Booster at the same times of day as the radiators are programmed to be on, thereby making this a very simple to set up fully automated system.
With Radiator Booster Mk2 things have changed a bit. Now the fans are only turned on when the unit's internal thermostat detects a temperature of over 32 degrees Celcius - a pretty certain indication that the radiator is on. This means that you can fit and forget the Radiator Booster Mk2 and it will turn itself on when required (and more importantly, off when not).
Unfortunately, leaving the mains transformer plugged in and on 24 hours per day for 6 months will use up around 8 kWh just in transformer losses (of which 6 kWh are completely wasted electricity - transformer losing electricity when fans are off), plus another 2 kWh used to power the fans (assuming radiators on for 6 hours per day 6 months of the year). Although the total financial cost of the electricity wasted is under £1 per year - negligible when compared to the promised overall energy and cost savings - it is still worth using a plug-in timer (cost around £4) to turn everything off during those hours when the radiator is never on - e.g. the middle of the night.
A renewable alternative would be to use 5 Watt PV solar panel (4) to charge a suitable 12V battery (5) to provide the necessary power through the winter months.
Overall Conclusions
Adding the thermostat makes this a much improved product. When we received our Radiator Booster Mk1 sample in 2008 we actually put together our own thermostat controller just so we didn't need to worry about turning it on and off with our somewhat random radiator usage. Having a reliable thermostat incorporated into the Mk2 unit greatly simplifies the use of this product for everybody.The fans were already very quiet, so reducing fan noise makes minimal difference, but making the product 'telescopic' means it can now be used with smaller radiators without overhanging at the ends.
Buy a Radiator Booster in the UK
Radiator Booster Mk2 is available in the UK for around £20. Click here to buy Radiator Booster Mk2 (6) now for £19.99.Web Link References
(1) http://www.reuk.co.uk/energy-efficiency.htm(2) http://www.reuk.co.uk/Buy-UK-Power-Meter.htm
(3) http://www.reuk.co.uk/Lead-Acid-Batteries.htm
(4) http://www.reuk.co.uk/buy-12-VOLT-5-WATT-SOLAR-PANEL.htm
(5) http://www.reuk.co.uk/Lead-Acid-Batteries.htm
(6) http://track.webgains.com/click.html?wgcampaignid=41578&wgprogramid=772&wgtarget=http://www.nigelsecostore.com/acatalog/Radiator_Booster.html
Article from REUK.co.uk:
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Radiator-Booster.htm
Published: 16th January 2009
© REUK 2009