Gates Reno

I love our steam radiators. When they don’t sound like a basement gnome is attacking them with a sledgehammer.

I asked Mr. Contractor if his guys could come take a look at the system. Luckily we hadn’t needed to turn the heat on much before Christmas, but when we did, the noise was deafening. We would heat the place up five or six degrees hotter than necessary in the evening so that we could turn the heat off altogether for the night. Otherwise, we would get woken up every time the heat cycled on. And, some of the radiators were spewing water out of the little valves that are supposed to release air. Let me tell you, one thing you don’t want happening around small children is for your heating system to turn into a boiling geyser at random times.

The plumbers said that the gauge that regulates the amount of steam in the system was busted, and that there were several leaks in the system. They fixed these problems, and then went around to check on each radiator. This is when the fun really started.

First, they discovered a leak in the parlor floor entranceway radiator. They thought that perhaps it wasn’t tilted correctly and water was condensing and running back out onto the floor (hence the level), but that wasn’t it. The problem was that the place where the pipe screws in to the radiator was completely stripped, and whatever they did they couldn’t get it to stop leaking.

They said that the radiators are about 100 years old, so I guess things like this are bound to happen. I’m in awe that they work at all.

Luckily, we had removed a radiator from the office/guest room, which for some strange reason had two. So we had an extra one that they could replace the broken one with. It worked out great.

Then, when they went to check on the radiator in the back parlor room behind the stairs, they found that not only was it leaking, but it had been leaking for so long that it was in danger of falling right through the now-rotten floor. So they unhooked it. We don’t need to heat that room right now, so we’ll worry about it later. The two back parlor rooms are being combined into one anyway, so maybe one radiator will suffice.

This is where the radiator used to be. Good thing nobody uses the disgusting bathroom below this room. The radiator could have landed on someone’s head.

The plumbers stayed long enough that we were all satisfied the banging had stopped. But at about two in the morning, it started again. Not quite as loud as before, but still too loud to sleep through. So, they checked the system again and ran some kind of cleaner through it. So far so good, noise-wise. But now there’s this weird smell on the top floor that smells a bit like cat-pee. I’m guessing it’s from the cleaner and hopefully it will fade.

No matter what, this is the best part of having radiators: