The Story

Gavin, a customer in Coventry, called us about one room that never really warmed up. The existing radiator was a small single panel not enough for a room with high ceilings and a lot of glass. He had already seen what he wanted on our site: the Antico vertical three-column radiator in white, 1800 x 560mm. The question was whether it would fit the existing pipes.

The Pipe Centre Question

This is where most vertical swaps live or die. The existing pipes measured 660mm apart. The Antico body is 560mm wide, and once a valve is added to each side the finished pipe centres land at roughly 650mm around 90 to 100mm added by the valves.

That 10mm difference is exactly the kind of gap that worries people and almost never matters in practice. Copper tails have a little movement in them, and how much only becomes clear once the old radiator is off the wall. 10mm is easy to adjust on site  it went on without touching the pipework.

56kg on the Wall — Solid Brick or Plasterboard?

An 1800mm three-column radiator weighs 56kg empty, and considerably more once it's full of water. Before booking the fit we asked one question that changes everything: is that a solid wall, or plasterboard on brick?

It matters because with dot-and-dab plasterboard there's a void behind the board. Long screws can pull through, brackets never tighten properly, and all that weight ends up hanging off a couple of inches of plaster. In that situation we fit floor feet to take the load and let the wall brackets do what they're good at holding the radiator upright rather than holding it up.

Here the walls turned out to be plaster straight onto brick proper fixings into masonry across four wall fixing points. Feet weren't strictly needed, but we sent a set of column radiator feet out on the van with the radiator anyway, just in case. On the day, with the radiator on the floor and its real weight in hand, Gavin decided he wanted them fitted after all.

The Whole System, Not Just the Radiator

Gavin asked whether the rest of the heating system could be checked at the same time — and with the system drained down anyway, that's the sensible moment to do it. It was drained, checked over and refilled with corrosion inhibitor as it should be, rather than just topped back up with plain water. The old radiator was taken away and recycled, included in the job.

Delivered on the Day, Not Left on a Doorstep

The Antico wasn't a stock size, so it had to be ordered in from our supplier — and an 1800mm column radiator is not something you want a courier leaving outside. We held it at our Coventry warehouse and brought it out with the installer on the morning of the fit.

Our installer came with one of the warehouse lads to help with the lift and started at 8:30am, so the whole job was finished in a single visit, on a date that suited the customer.