"Our service stops when our customer stops calling"
Does the color of radiators really matter?
I recently came across
this circular sent out by the US Department of Commerce’s National Bureau of
Standards
on July 19, 1935. It’s fascinating stuff and I thought you might want
to keep it on file.
Dan
Holohan
Painting of Steam and Hot Water Radiators
For a number of years
this subject has received considerable attention from the public, and it is
apparent that the
essential facts have not always been understood. The object of
this note is to supply the more important facts in
the case.
It will appear that as
far as their effect on the performance of radiators is concerned, paints fall
into two classes.
First, those in which the pigment consists of small flakes of
metal, such as the aluminum and bronze paints,
most commonly used for painting
radiators, which produce a metallic appearance and will be called metallic
paints.
Second, the white and colored paints, in which the pigment consists not
of the metals but of oxides or other
compounds of the metals. Thus white lead
paints, or those containing compounds of zinc or other metals, will be
called
non-metallic paints. These non-metallic paints are obtainable in practically all
colors, including white and black,
while the metallic paints have the color of
the metal or alloy of which the flakes are composed.
We will state at the
outset the principal conclusion, which will be explained in more detail later,
that the last coat of
paint on a radiator is the only one that has an
appreciable effect. And that a radiator coated with metallic paint will emit
less heat, under otherwise identical conditions, than a similar radiator coated
with non-metallic paint. In order to obtain
the same amount of heat from the two
radiators just considered the temperature of the one painted with metallic paint
must be somewhat higher. Under these conditions, exactly the same amount of heat
is being supplied to the two
radiators. And since neither the boiler efficiency
nor the heat wasted in the pipe lines is appreciably affected by small
changes
in radiator temperatures, practically the same amount of fuel is required to
supply the heat in each case. In
other words, while it may be desirable for
various reasons to avoid the use of metallic paints on radiators, no appreciable
saving in fuel will result from the use of non-metallic rather than metallic
paints.
The purpose of a heating
system is to maintain the rooms in a house at some temperature higher than that
prevailing
out of doors. The heat that is developed by burning fuel is
transferred to the rooms by means of the radiators. A radiator
neither creates
nor destroys heat and a large radiator, while it can put more heat into a room
than a small one, must be
supplied with all of the heat it puts in. In the sense
that they ultimately transfer all the heat supplied into the room, all
radiators
are 100% efficient. The word "efficiency" is, however, used in other ways, and
it is now customary to use it on
all possible occasions, but it is hardly
correct to say that putting metallic paint on a radiator reduces its efficiency
when
the effect is merely to reduce its capacity. The size of the radiators in a
house can only affect the fuel required for heating
by increasing or decreasing
the heat wasted in transmission from boiler to radiator and that lost up the
chimney. Only
when the radiators are so small as to render the whole heating
plant ineffective is an appreciable saving of fuel to be
expected by installing
larger radiators.
After these preliminary
explanations, we may proceed to consider the kind of effects that may be
obtained by the use of
various kinds of paint. The heat emitted from a radiator
is removed in two ways. First, the air streaming past the radiator
and rising
from it is heated and carries the heat to other parts of the room. Second, the
hot surface of the radiator emits
heat by radiation just as the glowing electric
and gas heaters do. Most types of steam and hot water radiators emit less
than
half their heat by radiation and evidently the name "radiator" although
universally used is not a particularly
appropriate one.
To take concrete case, a
particular sectional cast iron radiator, if painted with any non-metallic paint,
might transfer into
the room 180 Btu per hour for each square foot of its
surface, if supplied with the necessary amount of heat from a boiler.
The
burning of one pound of good coal produces about 12,000 Btu, and if the coal is
used in a domestic heating plant,
perhaps half of this, or 6,000 Btu, might
finally be transferred from the radiators into, the rooms. Most of the other
half of
the heat produced is inevitably lost via the chimney.
The area of one section
of a cast iron radiator is about two square feet for the smaller sections, and
up to seven or eight
square feet for the larger sections, so that a 10-section
radiator would have a surface area between 20 and 80 square feet.
Of the 180 Btu per hour
transferred, about 2/3 or 120 Btu would go to heating the air that passes over
the radiator. The 120
Btu transferred directly to the air would not be increased
or decreased by repainting the radiator. The remaining 60 Btu not
carried off by
the air is emitted as radiant energy. The amount of radiant energy which can be
emitted per hour by the hot
surface is dependent upon the kind of paint used for
the last coat. It was assumed that the radiator was painted with
non-metallic
paint. If it be repainted with a metallic paint, such as aluminum or bronze, it
will no longer be able to radiate 60
Btu per hour, but may be able to radiate
only 30 Btu, so that instead of transferring 180 Btu to the room per hour, it
can now
transfer only 150 Btu. The coat of aluminum or bronze paint is not an
insulating covering like a covering of magnesia or
asbestos, but it has a
similar effect, although for an entirely different reason. The resulting
reduction in heat emission is
entirely due to the reduction in the radiating
power of the exposed surface, rather than to the insignificant insulating value
of the thin layer of paint. It is therefore evident that undercoats of paint,
regardless of kind, have no significant effect on the
performance of the
radiator, except in the practically impossible case where the paint was thick
enough to act as an
insulating covering. In repainting a radiator, it is
therefore unnecessary to remove the old paint. The effect of adding the
metallic
paint is equivalent to removing 1/6 of the radiator, or nearly 17%, or as if one
section out of six had been removed.
Thus, a radiator of five sections painted
with white or colored paint should be about as effective as another of six
sections
of the same kind painted with metallic paint since each would transfer
the same amount of heat to the room to provided
the necessary amount of heat
were supplied to each.
In the following
applications, the numerical values given above will be used as if they were
exact, but it must be understood
that they are merely representative and would
not apply exactly to any particular case except by chance. The effect of
painting
on the capacity of a radiator depends upon the size and design of the
radiator. The reduction in capacity produced by the
application of aluminum
paint is less for large radiators than for small ones, especially so in the case
of large radiators having
many columns or tubes per section. In a large tubular
type radiator having seven tubes per section, more than three-quarters
of the
heat is carried away by the air directly and painting with aluminum consequently
reduces the capacity of the radiator
only about 10%. If only the visible
portions of a radiator are painted with aluminum paint, the reduction in
capacity is also
obviously less than if the entire surface is covered.
Application 1:
Suppose a house in which all the radiators are painted with aluminum paint, and
that the radiator in one room
is found to be too small, so that when the other
rooms are warm enough, this one is too cold. If the radiator in this room is
painted with non-metallic paint, either white or colored, the heat emitted by it
can be increased from 10 to 20% without
affecting conditions in the other rooms,
although it will be necessary to burn more fuel to supply the additional heat in
the
one room. If the increase is sufficient, the expense of installing a
radiator may thus be avoided.
Similarly, it is
possible, by using bronze or aluminum paint on radiators in rooms which are
overheated, and colored or
white paints in rooms not sufficiently heated, to
improve conditions without going to the expense of installing new radiators
of
larger or smaller sizes.
Application 2:
In installing radiators in a new house, somewhat smaller radiators may be
installed if they are to be painted
with colored paints, rather than bronze or
aluminum paints.
Application 3:
If the radiators on a hot water system are painted with metallic paint and are
all too small, so that the water
must be kept hotter than it is desired in order
to heat the house, they may be repainted with non-metallic paint, and it should,
then be possible to heat the house with the water in. the system not quite so
hot. There will be no noticeable saving of fuel.
Application 4:
Since basements usually over-heated so that much of the heat supplied there is
wasted, some economy
can be effected by painting the heater and pipes, with
metallic paint. This cannot, however, serve as anything more than a
poor
substitute for a covering of good insulating material about inch thick; which is
capable of making an appreciable saving
in the coal bill. The insulating
material will remain effective for years, while the paint becomes ineffective if
covered with dust.
Application 5:
If a radiator is situated next to an outside wall, as most of them are, it is
evident that the heat supplied
directly to this wall is more or less wasted.
Some slight economy may be obtained, therefore, by using metallic paint on
the
side facing the wall and non-metallic paint on the visible portions. The gain is
not large enough to be important, but on
the other hand, in putting non-metallic
paint over metallic, it is not worth while to go to the trouble of repainting'
the side
next the wall.