On Wednesday, 17 June 2020 00:37:00 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
On 16/06/2020 22:25, tabbypurr wrote:
On Tuesday, 16 June 2020 20:08:04 UTC+1, Fredxx wrote:
On 16/06/2020 17:59:37, tabbypurr wrote:
On Tuesday, 16 June 2020 17:51:25 UTC+1, Robin wrote:
On 16/06/2020 17:41, tabbypurr wrote:
On Tuesday, 16 June 2020 09:28:35 UTC+1, Robin wrote:

Adjective: doing something in a good, careful and complete way with no
waste of time, money or energy

a usage of the word that applies primarily to a person's actions.
'with no waste of energy' certainly applies to radiators. Good &
careful certainly have nothing to do with radiator efficiency.


It doesn't just have to be time, money or energy. It could be
weight or area in respect of a radiator.

sorry but no. The definition of efficiency in physics & engineering
is useful energy output divided by input. That's just what efficiency
is.

I don't buy that in this circumstance, since we have already highlighted
that in those terms its always 100%

we have

and also meaningless.

the meaning of efficiency in physics & engineering is well established. The failure of some to know it does not make it not so.


Hence one has to use the common English definition, which alludes to the
thing we do want to know, how *fast* the radiator can dissipate heat. In
other words what we are interested in is the output power, not the
proportion of energy out vs in.

We could probably all agree that what is relevant is something other than radiator efficiency. Deciding that that something else /is/ radiator efficiency is a factual error.


snip

Some further examples 2) efficient heating equipment 3) more
efficient use of energy 4) fuel-efficient cars (= that do not use
much fuel) 10) efficient in something - Modern water boilers are
highly efficient in fuel use.

those are of course the efficiency that we are discussing, useful
energy output over input.

Except we ain't...

yes it has been discussed here


There may be occasions where you might swap the word for
effectiveness, in many instances they are synonyms.

Perhaps English has moved on since you were at school?

It's moved on since all of us were at school, but like most words,
efficient still has the same meaning. And like so many words it also
gets used inaccurately, imprecisely and for the purposes of
promotional bs.

Good, lets all stop talking about radiator efficiency.

You can talk about overall system efficiency, or radiator power...

System efficiency is probably most relevant to the OP, and radiator choice can sometimes affect it.


NT