Once radiators are installed, it's quite difficult to paint or wallpaper behind them properly without their complete removal. This usually involves draining each one, and in some cases refilling the entire system. Folding Radiator solves this problem, as it can be folded down away from the wall, enabling full access to the rear surface requiring treatment.
Critical to this capability are the two new connectors, which take the form of watertight ball and socket joints (made from brass and copper) at the point where the rigid upright pipes meet the inlet and outlet on the radiator.
A simple attachment secures the radiator to the wall for normal useage. On being slackened and removed, the otherwise upright radiator may now be hinged down to a fully horizontal position, permitting easy access to the wall behind, with the heat maintained the during the entire process. Once complete, the radiator is simply pushed back into position and the attachment re-secured.-- xenzag, Dec 07 2018 How about the similar swing away baseboard electric heater (like a door on a hinge)-- beanangel, Dec 07 2018 I suspect that a rotatatable watertight joint will be either expensive or ineffective. However, a short section of flexible hose could work.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 07 2018 The radiator should fold away concertina-like when it is not required.-- pocmloc, Dec 07 2018 // either expensive or ineffective //
Expensive.
And the joints will only be moved at long intervals. There will be a tendency to sieze, or after being moved the joints will leak. A difficult technical challenge.
The fact that the joint will also be subjected to regular heating and cooling won't help.
Flexible pipework with a "pigtail" layout would offer a solution - and provide useful additonal freedom of movement - but would be comparatively bulky.
A self-sealing quick-disconnect coupler - possibly fabricated in stainless steel - would be effective but costly. As the water flow is low-pressure and relatively slow, it would be important not to introduce any restriction into the pipework, which means that the "open" area of the coupled connection would need to be at least as big as the rest of the system. That would mean a relatively bulky connector body.-- 8th of 7, Dec 07 2018 I find it slightly weird that I still heat my house with hot water being pumped around it through expensive copper pipes which can only be installed by specialists and which are subject to rare but potentially catastrophic leaks. Surely it would now be better to use electric heaters which would heat each room to the temperature required for that room and be easy to install?-- hippo, Dec 07 2018 (+) but in-floor heating is the only way to go.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 07 2018 Things have come a long way since 1786, or whenever the rigid copper-solder system used to circulate hot water around houses was first implemented. A brief look at the harsh environment of the automotive engine bay suggests that water circulating systems that tolerate heating, cooling, freezing, vibration and little bits of gravel already exist. Furthermore, they are also coupled through flexible linkages. A barb, glass fiber reinforced EPDM hose and a clamp, that's all you need. If you want to go fancy, use silicone and then you get to choose the color. Folding the radiator down would be trivial with silicone hoses.
Now I'm all wound up by the crappiness of central heating.-- bs0u0155, Dec 07 2018 //Surely it would now be better to use electric heaters// The problem is that you are then adding the inefficiency of electricity generation, and paying for all the waste heat that the power station has to dump. I'm not sure what the efficiency of oil- or gas-fired central heating is but, given that all the fuel is burned and the only loss of energy (to the outside world) is as heat through a chimney, it must be quite high.
[EDIT: a quick Google tells me that electricity generation from fossil fuels is 37-60% efficient, whereas new central heating boilers have to be at least 92% efficient. It's true that electric heaters are close to 100% efficiency, and also that pumps use some energy in a central heating system, but all that pumping eventually translates into heat anyway. So, you're using between 1.5 and 2.5 times more fuel for electric heating.]-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 07 2018 //I find it slightly weird that I still heat my house with hot water being pumped around it through expensive copper pipes which can only be installed by specialists and which are subject to rare but potentially catastrophic leaks. Surely it would now be better to use electric heaters which would heat each room to the temperature required for that room and be easy to install?//
This is why I'm all wound up about it, 0 improvements in function for decades, it's worse than printers. I'm off to redesign central heating. Electricity is somewhere in the 2-3 fold more expensive range compared to gas if you're talking straight resistive heating, but heating only the room you're in would more than compensate for that. Sadly it's 2018 and almost every dwelling has now been remodeled by one reality tv show or another and as such is now "open concept". This means you only have one room so you can read while enjoying the sound of the dishwasher and TV simultaneously.-- bs0u0155, Dec 07 2018 //Folding the radiator down would be trivial with silicone hoses.// Yes of course, and I'm fully aware of flexible gooseneck type connections, but I want my halfbaked copper and brass elbow joints!-- xenzag, Dec 07 2018 Yes, very steampunk.
// water circulating systems that tolerate heating, cooling, freezing, vibration and little bits of gravel already exist. //
Unfortunately, domestic plumbers who tolerate heating, cooling, freezing, vibration and little bits of gravel don't.
// I'm all wound up by the crappiness of central heating //
It's pretty bad.
// you're using between 1.5 and 2.5 times more fuel for electric heating //
The answer is to combust the fossil fuel in an engine which drives a heatpump compressor. The engine's cooling system can be used to produce hot water; the heatpump provides space heating.
Heatpump energy efficiency for space heating is 2:1 or better, far superior to simple electric heating using resistance (which is, of course, Futile).
// you only have one room //
<Obligatory Python Quote>
"A Room ? You were lucky ! We never had a room ...."
</OPQ>
// so you can read while enjoying the sound of the dishwasher and TV simultaneously. //
Yes, but you can turn the sound on the TV off. It'll only be yet another of those home makeover programmes, after all...-- 8th of 7, Dec 07 2018 If you film your dishwasher or the washing machine, then broadcast this to the TV, you can wash the dishes or your clothes and watch the TV at the same time without being disturbed by one device drowning out the other.-- xenzag, Dec 07 2018 // If you film your dishwasher or the washing machine //
Well, that's probably much more entertaining than watching yet another of those home makeover programmes, or cookery competitions ...-- 8th of 7, Dec 08 2018 random, halfbakery