designerradiators

OK, so it’s not the most thrilling of subjects on the surface, but the history of modern radiators is interesting if you care to delve a little deeper into the subject. Recognising the history will give you a much more grateful attitude towards this wonderful invention, which while expensive to run, does keep us so much more comfortable in winter than humans have ever been before. We owe it at least a cursory look at its history.

Before modern radiators, we had many different types of heating for our homes (and our caves if you care to back 400,000+ years), from simple fires to porcelain water pipes. However, it isn’t until the late 1800s that we really began to see the emergence of the first radiators as we would recognise them today.

Of all the documented radiators from that era, one stands out amongst the rest as the modern incarnation of the radiator. This radiator was called the “Bundy” for short. Named after its inventor, Nelson Bundy, the Bundy is recognised throughout the world as the invention that lends itself the most to our modern central heating. Without the Bundy, we’d still be somewhere in the 18^th century in terms of our in-home heating.

If you were to look at a Bundy radiator, you wouldn’t see much difference between it and a cast iron radiator. They’re effectively the same thing. They look identical, and they don’t look out of place in Victorian homes, even today.

The Bundy used a system of looped columns, as you still see in modern cast iron radiators. This feature helped to give the Bundy the popular name of the “Bundy loop”, the metal looping as it does.

To look at the Bundy, you can certainly bring to mind modern column radiators. However, they remain significantly different to chrome radiators and flat panel radiators. Still, the idea is the same: water pumped around a metal container connected to other metal containers by pipes. This is essentially the same way that our modern radiators work. In fact, it is exactly the same.

A key difference between the Bundy and modern day radiators however, is that the system ran on steam, rather than hot water alone – the latter is the case now. The focus on steam is very much a symptom of the time. We were living in the steam age, and as such, it should be unsurprising to learn that many of these inventions rested on steam.

One of the biggest things that the Bundy did for modern heating – as well as inventing a system that worked – was in creating a system that the manufacturers could bring to the masses. The Bundy was expensive, but it wasn’t beyond the means of the middle and upper classes. It heralded the age of mass central heating, and for that, we should be forever grateful to the man behind the legend: Nelson Bundy. Because of him, we get to stay nice and warm indoors, even in the heady heights of winter.

That concludes our brief introduction to the birth of the modern radiator.