A radiator can do much for your home. It can serve as an energy-efficient source of heat, keeping a room nice and toasty even on chilly days. It can also add a touch of class to your household aesthetic, with a sophisticated visual design that hearkens back to Victorian sensibilities.
Sometimes, however, you will need or want to take it down — if only for a moment. In preparation for these situations, it would help for you to know how to remove a radiator from the wall. It is not as difficult as it may sound, and this guide can show you the way.
Why Should You Know How to Remove a Radiator?
- Painting Behind Its Space
Radiators can provide an invaluable service to a home. Picture frames, coat hanger hooks, and furniture are also useful. These four components of a home may seem quite different, but they have at least one thing in common. Namely, they get in the way of room redesigns.
When you want to repaint the walls, everything attached to or rested in front of them should be removed. You would not want stains defacing your gorgeous radiator — or, for the matter, potentially flammable paint fluid stuck on a machine that generates heat. Moreover, you would not want to miss a spot, which can result in an ugly visual clash with the rest of the room.
- Replacing Old and Faulty Heaters
Alternatively, maybe the aspect of the room that needs changing is the radiator itself. For starters, it may have broken down after years of use. Nothing lasts forever, not even state-of-the-art home heating systems.
Worse, maybe it was just not right for the room at all. It could be using more energy than is reasonable. It may not be providing enough heat, or perhaps providing too much heat. As you can see, there can be quite a few reasons for replacing a radiator with a better one. To do that, you must first remove it, from both the wall and your home.
Steps for Removing a Radiator
- Turn Off the Radiator
By the end of the removal process, you will need to lift the heater off the wall with your own hands. If you are not careful, you could get seriously burned. Heaters, obviously, produce heat, and the metal used to make them can absorb it for quite a while. Therefore, you must make sure that it is not boiling hot when you hold it. If you plan to use it overnight and remove it in the morning, turn it off and give it time to cool down.
To shut it off completely, you must tighten the valves on either side of the machine as much as you can. This task will require a strong wrench, with a good grip on the valve’s caps. When you cannot go any further, remove said caps, swap the wrench for an adjustable spanner, and keep tightening. Do not touch the nuts on the valves — at least, not yet. They will come in handy for the next step.
- Drain the Machine
Radiators only function through boiling water, which gets circulated through the pipes across the entire device. To keep that water from getting on your body, you must empty it out of the heater. To keep it from getting all over the floor, put a bucket, bowl, or some other container beneath the radiator. You should lay it over a towel or two, just in case it cannot catch everything. Knowing how to bleed a home radiator is important. After all, no one wants a home renovation project to feature a splash zone.
Do you recall the nuts on the valves that you just tightened? Now is the time to touch them. Take your wrench and unscrew them until water starts coming out. You can change how much they are screwed in to control the speed of the flow. Once it starts, wait for that stream to turn into a trickle, then see if you can tilt the device around to get some more drops out. You can unscrew the caps completely when you feel sure that almost all the water is gone.
- Take It Off
At this point, you can empty the water that you managed to drain. You should if the amount of water is close to the lid, because there is almost certainly more still left inside. This near-certainty stems from the radiator’s design, rather than any clumsiness on your part. Some fluid will still accumulate in parts that can only be reached by tilting the radiator more than you may have already done. In short, just keep that container and towel around the work area.
Now, a radiator does not cling to the wall on its own. Hooks and brackets hold it up. If you want to know how to remove a radiator, the answer is simple: a lot of strength or a little help. Lift it up until it comes off completely from its hooks and brackets. Then, tip the valve over the bucket so that it catches any remaining water. With that done, you can finally, and carefully, rest the radiator on the floor. If you are not replacing it, you can put it away somewhere (still on the floor!) before you have to put it up again.
Find New, High-Quality Radiators Online
Now that you understand how to remove a radiator, you can easily follow these steps with minimal mess and difficulty. We should mention that beyond giving you a chance to repaint, having the system off of your wall also gives you an opportunity. While the machine is on your mind and in your hands, consider its performance and appearance. Is it worth putting this specific machine back, or should I put something better in its place?
If the answer is yes, then Eastgate Radiators can fill the gap with brand-new, beautifully designed, high-quality designer radiators. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, so you can find and select the perfect one for your needs and your tastes. Order from us today and install the radiator of your dreams.