A Guide to Buying Cast Iron Radiators

As with so many older houses, someone had the bright idea to remove the Cast Iron Radiators and put in pressed steel radiators, probably in the 1980's – long before I bought the place. A subsequent owner then had the equally silly idea of boxing in the steel radiators so the heat was not able to actually heat the house. Whilst pressed steel radiators are cheap, they are not as good as Traditional Cast Iron Radiators in many ways. It is also not entirely clear as to whether modern radiators are more efficient than Cast Iron Radiators as Iron holds heat longer than wafer thin steel. I had my heart set on replacing the radiators when I bought the house and as my research continued, I realized more and more that returning to Cast Iron Radiators was the right thing to do.

There are many people selling Cast Iron Radiators in the UK and many of the ranges are extremely similar. I subsequently discovered that whilst the market for selling Cast Iron Radiators is very busy, the market for making the castings is limited – actually there are no more than a handful of companies supplying all Cast Iron Radiators in the entire UK. Therefore, to get the best deal, I wanted to go to a company that dealt in large volumes. I compared prices across many companies and even those companies that offered a ‘price match’ guarantee were not able to match the price Period Style were able to work with after painting, finishing and  delivery were added on. Also, I chose Period Style because I liked their simple pricing, several other companies had appeared cheap, but added on so many extras that what appeared to be cheap originally was actually one of the most expensive in the UK.

My wife and I chose the radiator that we wanted and worked out the colour from the colour range on the Period Style website. We chose a decorated Daisy Cast Iron Radiator and we chose to highlight the finish to make it really stand out. Given that we were ordering Cast Iron Radiators for the entire house it was certainly worth calling Period Style to get the best deal possible and have my questions answered. Today our Cast Iron Radiators are not just a heating necessity, they are decorative objects throughout our house.

Brian