Heat

It's cold out, and if we don't want to freeze, it would be best to make our homes warmer. Generally, we do this by blithely turning up the thermostat, which is usually a knob with some numbers on it which rarely if ever reflect the actual temperature indicating one of those numbers with the knob would create. Then, we wait for warmth to penetrate the air, giving no thought to system which performed this miracle, but the system makes all the difference.

I would assume that most people have central heating, where the thermostat turns on a big furnace in the basement or under the stairs, and the heat it creates is piped through vents to every room in the house. I've got a system like that as well, and I know all the little quirks it has. For example, the warmest room in the house is the tiny closet off the kitchen we put food in and call a pantry, because the largest vent runs next to one of its thin walls. So, when I get cold, I know I can simply grab a snack to be enveloped by a satisfying bubble of heat. Other rooms, meanwhile, are absolutely freezing, like that tiny room above the garage we stuck a bookshelf in and called a library. Whoever designed the house decided that this room needed no warm air, so the only vent in the room is a return vent that sucks out all the warm air that had trickled in from the adjacent hallway, and that air is replaced by what filters in through the poorly sealed windows.

The point of a central air system is that you barely notice it while it makes your house warm and comfortable, but it utterly fails in that regard. With temperature differences as dramatic as those, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the reasons that they arise. Those reasons, as becomes clear with very little thought, is that the thermostat is only bothered with how warm its thermometer is, and it's only got the one in the one room. If another room is draftier, the thermostat pays no mind and delivers no more heat to that room than to any other room, resulting in the house acquiring a second, much larger refrigerator.

An alternative is presented in heating each room individually with space heaters or radiators, something done in the especially cold rooms of my house. These are often not terribly powerful appliances, but with sufficiently many of them, adequate warmth can be achieved. However, these also have their disadvantages. The first and most annoying of these is that each room must now be tended to individually, as each thermostat must be constantly adjusted to keep a temperature that is still not indicated by the dial. The other disadvantage is that they are more prone to setting things on fire, as they are completely exposed. However, if you ignore that slight smokey odor, then you might find that radiators have their benefits as well. Because they are heating up significantly smaller spaces than furnaces, their heat can be felt more quickly, and if you can't even wait for the heat to move across the room, you can stand over the radiator and become almost arbitrarily hot. Another advantage, at least in my opinion, is that radiators are not designed to operate entirely in the background while remaining unseen. You get the satisfaction of knowing when they're working when you hear them ticking and clunking, noises which can become extremely soothing. They also provide decoration, the modern ones appearing almost like floor molding.

This is the topic I have been leading up to: while the functionality of a heating system is its most important quality, there is still something to be said about its ascetic qualities and its visual appeal, and these qualities are the largest distinguishing factors between different heating systems. Central heating, as I have said, has its beauty in its ability to be completely concealed. No one must know where the furnace is or what it looks like in order to feel its effects. This allows for other decorations and furnishings to be placed where more obvious heating systems would be. It also provides the pleasingly quiet sound of the air rushing through a long metal tunnel followed by a noticeable yet subtle boom as it turns off. Modern radiators, meanwhile, present themselves proudly on the edges of rooms, not demanding attention visually, but not fearing it either. They provide a backdrop for the room, much like woodwork, and windowsills, which further decoration may be based on. Their ticking, similarly, provides background noise, which is helpful for the focus and sanity of the room's occupants.

Topping both of these systems, in my opinion, are old-fashioned radiators which have several parallel tubes nearly a meter high. While they may be functionally antiquated, their charm and appeal has not been lost. These appliances are decorations in themselves, contributing to the character of a room as much as the colour of its walls. They can be modified to match any style, some demanding attention with their rustic designs, while others, with their simple, round tubes, appear almost minimalist. What does not change from one old radiator to the next are the sounds of clunking, banging, and ticking which scare away pesky children and sooth more matured and refined people. This is a noise which lets people know that they are home and helps people, or at least me, fall asleep. They also have an advantage in their heating capabilities. Because they are much larger than modern radiators, the old ones must not reach the same temperatures, so most things placed on them won't burn. This means that, should one of these radiators is installed in a bathroom, towels may be placed on it to get warm. Few things feel better than a warm towel on a cold day.

Overall, while I have favoured old radiators to other heating systems, I have shown no displeasure with newer radiators or furnaces. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and both are overall good systems. The one system I mentioned which I find infinite problems with, however, is the space heater. With all the bulkiness of the old radiators and none of the style, these monstrosities appear to litter rooms rather than add to them. They require sprawling cords, and most have no thermostats, only high and low settings, meaning a large discontinuity in the levels of heat they produce. Further, only being plugged in to ordinary wall sockets, they don't have access to the power required to heat a room properly, even on their "high" settings. They are feeble, ugly, useless, and constantly being tripped over. Space heaters have no redeeming qualities, especially in the midst of their more powerful, more practical, and more visually pleasing competition.