What does BTU mean?
BTU stands for British Thermal Units and is a unit of measurement for energy. Example: 150 British Thermal Units is equal to the amount of energy used to raise the temperature of 150 pounds of water 1-degree Fahrenheit. You will see BTU used when referring to the amount of heat output a radiator emits to increase the heat in a room. The higher the BTU number associated with a radiator, the more heat that radiator can output to warm the room.
You can calculate the BTU heat output needed for all rooms including lounge, hallways, bathroom, bedroom and kitchen with a BTU Calculator. You can get a rough idea of heating needs based on just the dimensions of the room and walls but for more accurate results what you need to know is;
- Room Dimensions Including ceiling height in metres or feet
- Number of windows in the room
- Window Size
- Type of glazing (single or double usually)
- Number of walls on the outside of the building
- Outside wall material
- What is above and below the room
Why do you need a BTU radiator calculator before buying a radiator?
Everyone at some point in their lives will have experienced being in rooms which always seem too cold despite the radiator heating always being on. It is likely unless there were always open doors that this was because the wrong radiators were installed for the room dimensions. Namely, the heat output of the radiator wasn't sufficient to heat the room. And you may have also experienced rooms being swelteringly hot when the heating was turned on. This again is a heating calculation failure, namely radiators may give out too much heat for the size of the room. To prevent our customers getting the wrong size radiators for their heating needs, we recommend them using our BTU calculator to get their perfect radiator.
Get the perfect radiator with our BTU Radiator Calculator
Use the RadiatorsOnline.com BTU calculator to find the BTU output requirements of each room you are adding or replacing radiators in. Remember the number that the calculator returns is the total number of BTUs required to heat a room, so you can use as many radiators as you would like to reach this number.
If you are concerned at all, we always recommend going above the BTU number. Some houses or buildings are just naturally colder than others and you are the best judge of that. Going over your total BTU number does no harm except you could make it too hot if not using a thermostat or your bills could be unnecessarily high, again, unless you use a thermostat. Not having enough however could result in your heating being on full power and still not achieving the cosy heat feeling you are striving for.
We always recommend working with a plumber to get an expert’s opinion on site but our detailed BTU calculator works brilliantly and ensures you achieve an accurate guide as to how many BTUs and Watts you need to heat your room effectively and efficiently.
How to Use Our BTU Heating Calculator
- The first step is you need to measure in metres or feet your room dimensions and write them down. So that's the width of the room in metres or feet, the height of the room walls in metres or feet and length of the room in metres feet. The length tends be longer than the width.
- Once you have those measurements, second step is to fill out all of the fields below and click “calculate”. Our smart radiator calculator will do the hard work for you and display the radiators that are suitable for your needs.
From there you can use the filter on the left to narrow your search down to the perfect size, colour and style of radiator to heat your rooms.
