Cast Iron Radiators are environmental friendly

Now a day’s modern radiators have replaced the old Cast Iron Radiators, but the fact is Cast Iron Radiator works same as modern steel radiator do. There are few disadvantages of cast iron radiators. Cast iron radiators have more internal volume; hence they take more time to start up. But this disadvantage proves to be an advantage when the radiator is switched off as it retains heat after the boiler is switched off.

A cast iron radiator generally has more volume than the flat panel radiator; therefore it requires more work from the boiler. A temperature control localization of each radiator, a thermostatic valve will help to reduce the wasteful heat that is generated. This helps in regulating the temperature throughout the house by allowing the rooms to heat for long that are cool and giving less time to rooms having other sources of heat.

Now what is efficiency? The definition says that it is the ratio of useful work performed by the machine to the total energy expended or the heat being taken up. The total energy is the energy fed into the radiator; hence the efficiency of the radiator can be defined as the ratio of energy required to the energy emitted by radiator.

Conservation of energy says that the energy in should be energy out. Energy of new hot water cast iron radiators is equal to the summation of the energy emitted by the radiator plus energy required to heat the radiator. It is clear that with the increase in the amount of energy required to heat the amount of energy emitted will decrease, until the temperature equals the temperature of water. At this point the heat required  by the radiator will be zero.

Cast iron radiators have thick, heavy iron walls in between cooler ambient air and hot water. The billions of atoms of iron with very high kinetic energy emitted as heat energy heats the air around the radiator. The hot air has less density compared to the air surrounding; hence it rises up like a hot air balloon. The cool air surrounding the radiator fills the void and gets heated creating convection current in the room.

Therefore the air that is used up remains inside the room and is not polluted. The air is only heated and cooled; it is not mixed with other gaseous substances as it happens in the modern radiators. Where the cast iron radiator takes more time to heat up than taken by the flat panel radiator the time taken by the radiator to cool down is also more. Also both the radiators have almost same efficiency. In a cast iron radiator efficiency can be increased by highly efficient boiler, thermostatic radiator valves, clever use of insulation and turning off the radiators inside the room when not required.

Hence looking at the efficiency factors it proves that cast iron radiators prove to be very environmental friendly. The main reason being that it does not pollute the surrounding air and also keeps the air fresh.