Electrified Cast Iron Radiators!?! Anyone have any experience with these?

@smokychimp – we feel exactly the same way! It was good to have a sounding board like this forum in order to hear so many takes on it. I’m sure it has its place somewhere, but Brooklyn isn’t a good fit.

Guest User | 6 years and 7 months ago

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Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago

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That’s amazing and great to hear! That’s who we’re planning on working with, and they’ve been a joy far. Just got our estimates in. We were considering a 30 panel, 13,000 kWh system.

greenworks | 6 years and 11 months ago

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Great to hear!

Just fair warning tho — for the first six months you WILL find yourself going down to your ConEd meter just to watch it run backwards LOL

helen40

in General Discussion 6 years and 11 months ago

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I can only give my real world experience with natural gas and old school hot water radiators. for heating a 3200 sq ft house with a south exposure for the garden. We installed a new “high efficiency” furnace about 15 years ago. We also installed new double-hung, double pane windows several years ago. We also have a gas cooktop, oven, drier, hot water heater (old style) and outdoor grill. We keep the house, which is one zone for heat, at about 68 in the winter. For this, we pay $107 per month through level billing, or $1284/year.

Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago

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@bored_at_work – that is immensely helpful. And that’s a pretty attractive number! Do you find that having a single zone is uncomfortable at all?

helen40

in General Discussion 6 years and 11 months ago

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Yes, but only slightly, and just on the coldest days of winter. We made the mistake of removing (for aesthetic reasons) one large cast iron radiator from the rear parlor level of the house. The thermostat is also nearby in the hall on the wall. So in order to get the parlor to 68, the furnace cranks out enough heat so that the top floor is sometimes 74. This is exacerbated by the chimney effect of the stairway. So, on the coldest days, we turn on a small electric space heater to get the rear of the parlor to a reasonable temperature, “tricking” the thermostat. This allows the upper floors to remain comfortable and not get too hot.

By the way, we are also garden rental over owner’s triplex. They pay cooking gas and hot water, but we pay for heat for the whole house. One zone for four living floors.

Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago

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@boredatwork – your situation is exactly as ours is going to be. Thank you for this. ANYTHING else you want to tell me about what your experiences have been like would be deeply appreciated. Anything!

The only downside to this arrangement for us that I can see is that my wife constantly sneaks to the thermostat and raises it to 78 or higher when I’m not looking. And then she’s shocked that our heating bill is outrageous in the winter! We “joke” about it all the time.

EJR | 6 years and 11 months ago

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> @jhcovert
> I don’t think baseboard heat is as good a way to go since the thermal mass of the units are not nearly as high as the old radiators – the cast iron should hold the heat for a much longer time than the thin aluminum fins of baseboard heaters, and the rads should not dry out the space the way traditional electric heat often does. Also, if they are wired like baseboard, shouldn’t they draw like baseboard?

I have no science or engineering background, so I may be completely wrong here, but it seems to me that the thermal mass issue cuts both ways. Yes, the rads will hold heat longer than baseboard heaters, but it will also take significantly more energy to heat the rads to a point where they can effectively heat your home than it would to heat baseboard heaters. Net/Net I do not know how this calculation would shake out, but my guess is that it’s a wash.

The solar array you mention does seem quite large, and perhaps that would cover your electric heating costs, but the amount of energy required to heat rads via electricity versus through a steam boiler syste m seems so high that it’s not clear to me you would cover the difference. Gas in NYC is extremely cheap and electricity from the grid is extremely expensive. FWIW, I have a very old, very inefficient gas-fed steam boiler and the cost to heat my house in winter (plus stove and dryer) is ~$350/month for 3000 sq. ft. 1 zone.

You also mention that this solution will have benefits vis a vis insurance companies because you will not have a water-based system. Keep in mind, however, that a traditional system is steam-based, not water-based, so while there is water (vapor) traveling throughout your home, it is not as much liquid volume as you might imagine. Conversely, with this electric system you are pumping 100 year old cast iron radiators full of liquid oil. The damage that could be caused to your house were one or more of these to leak seems extraordinary.

NeoGrec | 6 years and 11 months ago

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Our situation is almost identical to Bored’s, both in terms of the size of the house and our gas bill. We too use space heaters to compensate for imbalances. This also helps because my partner works at home and we only heat the entire house in the morning and evening. The thermostat switches our central heating off over night and during the day. We have been considering adding gas fires (the Valor Portrait President) in two rooms — our front parlor and the study — to create some zoning. If you are considering central AC, the ductless mini-splits can be used for additional winter heat (but most posters here say they cannot provide ALL the heat you need). Adding supplemental heat to a room is probably the best way to go. I would worry that your plan will result in an over-zoned house. A steady, constant temperature throughout — even in rooms you don’t use much — is preferable to keeping some rooms cold. If you do the latter, you’ll end up over-heating the rooms you use because of cold spots around the house. At the end of the day, hot water radiators create a wonderful ly cosy house. I would never get rid of our gas-fired rads! And never under-estimate the quality-of-life benefit of high quality, draft-free windows.

camp6ell | 6 years and 11 months ago

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I bet BSW gave you a handful of references to call about their solar installs (and endless more on request if you needed them). I know they did with me….
So, why are you finding it “so easy” to believe that people who have used and presumably been totally satisfied (!) by these radiator con-verters wouldn’t want to be outed…?

houndmama | 6 years and 11 months ago

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Hi there. Interesting discussion and
intriguing idea re: the electric radiators. However. Given that it’s very new, cutting edge technology and not at all adopted here in NYC, I would be very concerned about choosing this option. If you have any problems, who will you call to fix it? If there are no trained technicians or mechanics you could be in a world of trouble.
Why not replace the boiler, keep it gas / hot water or steam, and use the solar panels to cut out the Con Ed bill. Seems the least disruptive, easiest approach.

Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago

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@houndmama – Very good point re: repairs, in fact, one my wife pointed out tonight. And after this very informative thread I think what you suggest is just what we’re going to do! Electrical cat iron radiators: too much trouble and too new a technology, and likely entirely too expensive as so many on here have pointed out (in both installation and operation). I’m convinced. Perhaps in a few years we’ll have saved up the money to zone our hydronic system, but for now we’ll make a single zone work for our needs.

Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago

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@camp6ell – that’s a really good point. You’d think that they’d be passing their client’s info around so that they can crow about how great it is. I did manage to get the email address of a woman in Germantown, NY who has had them installed in two homes. I will reach out to her just to be sure, but as I mention in the comment above, we’ve decided that this route is simply too much hassle and too many unknowns (and likely too much money) to move forward with. Single zone hyrdonic it is!

Master Plvmber | 6 years and 11 months ago

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There are lots of devices and methods for creating multi-zone heating in water-based systems and yet many homes are heated as a single zone. Balance is the end game here. Steam is heated with properly sized air vents and pressure settings while hot water systems are balanced with flow rates and water temperature settings. Energy delivery requires a specialist heating tech and having a plumber’s license doesn’t automatically put a person in that category. We heat buildings with water-based (hydronic) systems differently now than we did 10 years ago and with an eye on efficiency like never before, we’ve stopped doing things like flooding buildings with heat to appease that one cold tenant or difficult-to-heat area of the structure. Again, I teach a class on this subject at www.GeneralSociety.org and the misconceptions and lingering bad practices, even within the industry, are surprising and numerous.

murph | 6 years and 11 months ago

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Go to Canada and check it out. Cheaper than guessing wrong.

Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago

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@Murph – Ha! It’s really starting to shape up that way.

Solomonsmines33 | 6 years and 11 months ago

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Yeah– I don’t have anything different to say. We love our steam heat. It was very tricky to re-balance the system at first because we replaced some radiators, but otherwise great now that it is running.

murph | 6 years and 10 months ago

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I have a corner brownstone town house(104′ of exposed masonry, 3,554 feet of space with only one attached neighbor. Heavy heat load in winter so it’s over-built with radiators. During each of two renovations we removed one radiator but with a supersized furnace we are quickly cozy warm.

There is a calculator on the internet to ascertain your radiator needs which also dictates the load you need from your heating source. The original set-up was a coal-burner with air ducts supplanted with gas burners in fireplaces. About ninety-years ago it was converted to oil and hot water radiators. The ducts and fireplaces were sealed. I upgraded to NG and an independent-fired WH(works off the furnace), an energy audit, under-the-roof insulation, double-pane windows and sealed everywhere. Saves you both in winter & summer.

The City should be telling all buyers that they should really look at this essential upgrade when a sale is registered. After a washer & dryer it’s your best investment.

davfgreene | 6 years and 10 months ago

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I strongly recommend insulating and air sealing the heck out of your brownstone. Reducing your heating load that way will probably have a much bigger impact on reducing your heating costs than just putting solar panels up (but by all means, do that too).

coconut | 6 years and 10 months ago

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I love my cast iron radiators. However I found out that the walls to my brownstone were not insulated. I allowed the guy to make a small hole in the wall and much my surprise no insulation. Federal Conservation put in an eco-friendly insulation that not only push in a liquid that turns to foam. It is fire resistant, kills termites because it coats them with an oil. Well now I get complaints about too much heat which is music to my ears because I have been able to lower my heat and save money. Things break down but a cast iron will stand the test of time and the heat is just incredible. Use the option Federal Conservation 1-800-675-1660. Ask for Joey. Keep your heating system.