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Common Questions About Heating, Ventilation and Cooling
What is a radiator?
A radiator's main purpose is to provide a transfer medium in order to heat something. That particular item can be a house, a room, or factory. All three of those items can be heated by a radiator. A radiator serves as a catch all, in essence, for the hot water that is transferred from the boiler that it is heated in. The hot water is transferred through the boiler to the radiator, heating up the radiator which then gives off heat throughout a room, house.
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Typical radiators are made out of cast iron and look essentially like a series of pipes for the heat to travel through. Another type of radiators is a baseboard radiator which are just a pipe with a bunch of aluminum fins attached that is run along the baseboard of a room.
With both types hot water from the boiler warms the metal parts of the radiator, which in turn provide heat to room. Naturally, as the water passes through the radiator, it cools off and is returned to the boiler to be heated up again.
Radiators heat the room in two ways: radiant heat and convection heat. Obviously based on their name radiators are designed to radiate heat into the room. These radiant heat travels though the air and warms objects in the room instead of the air itself. But in addition to radiant heat, radiators also cause convection type heat due to the fact that the are around the radiators warms up and begins to rise causing a slight air current over the surface of the radiator.