When you have the heating on and you have wet clothes on the radiators, dry clothes or nothing, does it impact the amount of heat dispersed to heat your home?

Question

Are the clothes absorbing some of the heat or do they absorb it and just release it anyway to your home so it doesn’t make a difference what is on top of the radiator.

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

2. things

1. Heating and drying these clothes takes energy, you basically have “more room” to heat up, thus increasing energy needed.

2. The clothes are essentially blocking the heat from being released at least momentarily, it will eventually disperse but your radiator doesn’t know that, it has a temperatur sensor usually on the handle, but if that one doesn’t get hot, the radiator doesn’t stop heating. So this could lead to your room becoming hotter than you’d want it, which increases the amount of heating you have done.