I am in the process of renovating a two story 1800 sq. ft. wood frame house. It was a two family and each floor has a seperate boiler. The first floor has big old radiators and a big old boiler with big old pipes. I have gutted the first floor. Is there any reason I should keep the radiators? Installing baseboard water would be so easy and cheap. The radiators take up so much space and are ugly. The only advantage to keeping them would be to save a couple bucks. I am a couple days from getting rid of the radiators and I am curious to hear an argument in favor of keeping the radiators. Thanks.
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those big old castiron radiator will give much better heat than baseboard heating, as a finish carpenter i think they are really ugly.
I happened to be watching "Ask This Old House" yesterday, and they visited a guy who was sandblasting and repainting radiators and selling them for as much as 1500 dollars apiece. As far as I could tell he was getting many of them for nothing. He had over a thousand of them, and was acquiring them all the time. So don't get rid of them!
I think that you answered your own post, they are ugly and they take up too much room. Modern baseboard heat installations are just as efficient or better than the old radiators. Like one of the other posts said, they may be worth money. The only reason that I can see to keep them is if you are doing a period re-hab. Lots of luck.
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Baseboard radiaters convert hot water to convective heat. Cast iron radiaters convert hot water to radiant heat. Radiant heat is much more efficient in warming the body, using less energy. Also once the thermastat is off the mass of the radiater stays warm, moderating the temperature. Cast iron radiators are the cadilac, baseboard are the yugo, just go price them new. Sandblasting makes them like new. ches
Sell them on eBay - someone will come pick them up. One of my coworkers spent all last summer buying, blasting, testing, disassembling, and reassembling CI radiators for his new house.
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I much prefer the heat from radiators to that of convective alternatives. In lofts and other less conservatively styles renovations, I have seen them stripped with a wire wheel giving them a brushed look, then clear coated. They were anything but ugly. Still, if you are bothered by them, rip them out.
Depending on wether you have hot water or steam, when cold, they can take for ever to heat up. (hot water)
BUT, once they are hot, I love to sit my butt right up against them. Next best thing to a wood burning stove.
My cats love to sleep by them................
I don't think that they are very efficient, but I am no expert.
Couple of years ago my wife and I were house hunting. Came upon a nice loking Victorianish house that the previous owner had been "working" on.
As we walked in the back door where the kitchen had been torn out, we saw a pile of cast iron radiators piled high. Copper pipes running up and down walls and across ceilings.
What a disappointment.
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I had to buy mine on ebay. Lotta of em' there for sale and a lot get sold.
I LOVE cast iron radiators!!!!
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You could go to
http://www.heatinghelp.com
and post the same Q at 'the wall'
You are sure to get alot of opinions on the subject.
My 2c... keep the rads, update the boiler and insulate the pipes.
I agree with the previous post. Rads are great, if you can afford the space. If you want air conditioning, tear the whole system out and go with forced air- it's the cheapest combined alternative and no worse nor any better than hot water baseboard units for heating comfort. The rads in my place are more than adequately sized and so I actually can run them at fairly low water feed temperatures (~ 135 F on the coldest days) and still get great comfort out of them. And a modern boiler will do wonders for the heating bills.
If you want AC, put in a separate system & keep the rads.
Cast radiators are only second to radiant floors for comfort, IMHO.
Air heat (convection) of any kind is not comfortable.
I've been in plenty of comfortable "scorched air"-heated houses. It's all a matter of design and installation, like any other technique. And your tolerance for noise, dust etc. Personally I'm with you- radiant suits my tastes best- but not everybody is like us.
Retrofit air conditioners are EXPENSIVE. Parts cost alone for those high-velocity units such as the Spacepak or Unico systems basically would break my bank. It's not the air handler itself generally, though that's not cheap either- it's all the fricking fittings and internally-insulated sound-attenuating ducting that adds up quickly. If you want to condition only a room or two, a mini-split system such as Mr Slim or the like will do the job just fine, but when you start splitting refrigerant to various air handlers to distribute the cooling, the complexity and cost gets very high very quickly. If you want full, properly distributed AC for a reasonable price, you're basically talking about putting in ducting anyway, which begs the question: just why exactly am I paying for two complete separate systems when one will do both?!
It depends on who you are renovating the house for...if you are just trying to turn it and make a few bucks, then put the baseboards in (I'm assuming you are talking fin tube here). But whenever I see fin tube, I think... cheap, cheap, cheap. They will not match the heating comfort and efficiency of the cast iron radiators, and they look like hell IMHO.
Personally, I don't think radiators take up that much space, and if you take the time to blast em' and paint / finish them, they will look great and work well for another 100 years. If space is really a hassle in a room or two, you can intergrate cast iron baseboard without any problems with system temperature.
I think the radiators are much more attractive and functional. But if you really don't like the look of them, maybe you should look into radiator covers. They're out there, I know, or you can make your own. Only downside is that they interfere with the radiant nature of the heat, and convert it to convective heat.
zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"