Column Radiators - Acova? Something else?

glitch

glitch

glitch

Soldato
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8 Nov 2005
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With the look I'm going for in my new house, column radiators are the perfect fit - and while I appreciate the heat output might not be on a par with the more traditional panel radiators, they seem to be acceptable for what they are.

Are Acova the brand to go for? I've discounted Stelrad Classic for their lolworthy pricing, which leaves Acova as looking like the right balance of quality and price.

And in terms of heat output, I'm assuming that the 3-column is the minimum you should go for? Are the 4-column variants worth the extra? How does one go about working it all out and dealing with the (no doubt) generous heat output figures the manufacturers supply.
 
I got a nice acova 2 Column panel last week. Good quality and looks great on the wall.

They are at a fair price on b and q right now.

As for the size just do a btu calculation for your rooms and get one to suit.
 
We needed two for our new Kitchen dinner earlier in the year and I ended up going with ibath on ebay it is basically an outlet store for soak.com. The radiators are lovely and if weight is any indicator of quality then they must be decent! We needed anthracite to match some bifold doors which were harder to find and led me to ibath but i'm sure the white ones are equally as nice.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vertical-...hash=item4d0f322231:m:m6OoORXaBZVsiplbQL2oxWQ
 
We have the acova ones downstairs, they look the part but the output is poor compared to panel rads, they take 3 times the amount of water of the same sized rad so take a lot longer to warm up but once hot they stay hotter for longer.

Im tempted to take mine out soon for the above reasons also getting them ballanced was a pain in the backside as our 10 rad system is now like a 20 rad system with the amount of water in it.
 
I shopped around a lot for our rads. I found good ones on eBay by Simplyhome.

Soak had nice looking one, but was very expensive!

a1ex2001 said:
We needed two for our new Kitchen dinner earlier in the year and I ended up going with ibath on ebay it is basically an outlet store for soak.com.
Click to expand...

Not sure this is true? I avoided them like the plague, all you need to do is check out the feedback on trustpilot!
 
rexehuk said:
I shopped around a lot for our rads. I found good ones on eBay by Simplyhome.

Soak had nice looking one, but was very expensive!



Not sure this is true? I avoided them like the plague, all you need to do is check out the feedback on trustpilot!
Click to expand...

soak.com used to be bath empire and our ibath eBay radiators came in empire bath boxed! I'm sure they have the same address and use the same product photography as well!
 
I think the only notable difference between the cheap and the expensive ones is the feet/fixings, or at least the biggest giveaway.
Iirc they have a BTU calc on their own website for sizing them
 
a1ex2001 said:
soak.com used to be bath empire and our ibath eBay radiators came in empire bath boxed! I'm sure they have the same address and use the same product photography as well!
Click to expand...

Yeah noticed the photography element, what made me think "oh wow it's like £100 cheaper than soak".

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/ibathuk.co.uk

Only reason i didn't order to be honest, I'm sure it's one of those "if you have no issues it's fine" companies, just didn't want to risk it myself!

This is the one I ended up grabbing - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SimpleHom...var=461330966841&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
 
We ordered two radiators on separate orders first came fine second was delayed by a few days they refunded the next day delivery charge hit and miss but savings over soak and the eBay buyer protection made it too tempting!
 
Thank you to everyone for their input - interesting reading.

I had a peek at an Acova radiator in-situ over the weekend and while it looked lovely, the spaces between the 'fins' worried me slightly... huge gaps and I can sort of see why people say they aren't all that efficient.

The radiators linked by rexehuk look good, but is there something halfway between those and the Acova-style? Are any of the other column brands a little more... chunky?

B&Q have a range actually called Chunky, which do remind me more of 'school' radiators than the Acova, but their sizes are a little limiting.
 
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