Radiators, on the John McCririck Scale of Hideous Things to Behold, score a solid nine or ten. They sit there in the corner of the room, gridded, metal, barely warm. And although they are essential for the heating of your home, they're not very pretty.
Which is why many homeowners choose to hide theirs with a wooden box or cover. Sounds perfect, right? Not quite: according to Jason Muteham, furniture designer and maker, radiator covers might save your eyes from bleeding at the sight of your radiator, but could well cost your home's energy efficiency significantly.
"They're pretty inefficient," says Jason. "Putting one of those traditional-style boxes over a radiator will actually kill the heating performance. Modern radiators are about the convection cycle, meaning you get the cold air in the bottom and hot air out of the top.
"As soon as you've put a thick shelf on you've killed your heating system dead. Dozens of people have told me they have traditional-style covers, and in the winter they have to pull them off the walls just to get the hot air out."
And that impact on fuel bills could be even more important, if this week's uSwitch.com forecast is anything to go by. The price comparison firm predicted this week that, with energy bills continuing to rise, the average household could face a £1,500 annual bill for heating and lighting their home by 2015.
So as well as ripping those ugly MDF grilles from the wall, you can boost your home's efficiency and bring down those monthly energy costs by investing in LED lighting.
While traditionally LED lighting has been thought of as weak, inefficient or short-lived, recent advances in the technology have brought both pricing and performance in line with traditional bulbs.
As a result, they are perfect for brightening up any spot in the home - from LED bathroom lights to outdoors with low voltage garden lights.
