Given the current chill in Italy – and the fact that Godzilla’s seen more snow in the past week than we’ve had in Toronto all winter – I’ve been giving a lot of thought to heat lately. While Canada is a forced-air kind of place, Italy is more about stoves and radiators, especially given the impenetrability of Godzilla’s walls for installing massive ducts. Even putting in the tubes needed for radiators involves jackhammers and strong men.
Runtal's Arteplano: each one a work of metallic art
So, while a pellet stove is likely one of the ways we’ll be heating the place, I’ve been amusing myself by checking out all the fabulous creativity that has been going into making radiators look interesting. To whit, the wonderful inventions pictured here.
Caleido's Flora: fun and vibrant
I love the idea of mixing modern with Godzilla’s ancient walls. The fact that some of these might in fact cost more than Godzilla’s walls doesn’t deter me from my cold-weather fantasies! Dreaming is part of the fun of renovating.
Caleido's Pelicano: good for bread, gloves or towels
Tubes' Add-On, modular and extendable
Tubes' Soho: not just chic but super-efficient
Links to the companies that make these rads:
Godzillavilla 
Love the radiators! Especially the Tubes – add on.
It’s almost enough to make me want to install a radiator in my Toronto house.
We have fairly conventional central heating here in our apartment in Bagni di Lucca. We have solar heating in the new house in Vergemoli along with a pellet heater which connects to underfloor heating. Hopefully the electricity we paid to have connected on April last year will one day happen.
Yes that time lag between a promise of electricity and actually having it happen can be unpredictable. We’ve maintained the electrical service at Godzilla even though it’s only used when construction is going on. Seems worth paying for in the long run to make sure it’s there when it’s really needed.
Are there any hybrid home hitaeng systems, for example oil/gas and solar?Since hybrid car technology exists, I wondered about the availability of hybrid home hitaeng systems. It seems to me that this might be a viable option for homes in areas that have cold winters and rainy spring and/or fall seasons.
There are in fact hybrids, and our heating/plumbing contractor has been talking about them. It’s a question of hooking things together so that when the default systems (say a pellet stove or a solar panel) fail to maintain the heat of the house or the water at whatever minimum you’ve set, the second system kicks in (eg. gas).