Unblock your radiators

If air can’t move through the radiator or convector, they can’t shed heat into the space. If your users are in the habit of piling things in front of the radiators, hang a sign with a photo of what the area should look like. In our experience, pictures are more effective than signs that have more than a very few words.

We’ve also seen radiators with joinery blocking the airflow to make them look better or keep children from touching them. If you’ve done this for safety, consider whether you can turn down the boiler flow temperature and still be warm or whether you can replace the joinery with something more like a fire guard, or you may be able to get low surface temperature covers that fit.

In this radiator, the air can’t go in the bottom and out the top like it should.

Different kind of radiator, but this arrangement works for all of them. Sometimes the wire guard is screwed to the wall with enough finger access to change the controls.