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

Hi All: first time poster.

We are in the process of renovating a 4 story brownstone in Crown Heights. The unit has cast iron stand-up radiators throughout and an old (40+ years) hydronic boiler.

We were interested in getting a new boiler and possibly zoning the system, but as you can imagine, it’s a pretty penny to bring it up to speed with all of those mechanical pumps and fine tuning.

We stumbled upon a company out of Canada (newly landed in the US – Connecticut) that restores and paints your cast iron radiators, fills them with an antifreeze solution, and inserts an electric element where the water once came in. The electric elements are wired the same as baseboard so they can be easily tied into a modern thermostat, and/or equipped with a wifi dongle for electronic zoning. This means you can place them wherever you like as long as there’s electric.

The company is called EcoRad – https://www.ecoradusa.com

We had a mechanical engineer take a look at the site and they were confident that it’s a more efficient system as 100% of the electrical output goes into t he heating as opposed to loss of heat via pipes and water with oil or gas. Up front costs were his primary concern.

Does anyone out there have experience with this system?!? Cost of its installation? Usability? Operating costs?

The company says there are residential installations in Brooklyn, but aren’t comfortable giving people’s info out (I get that).

Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago

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resident2 | 6 years and 11 months ago

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Look into installing Solar panels as well; otherwise the electricity is too expensive in NY.
Otherwise keeping the cast iron radiators, the old circulating hot water system with a new boiler is far more efficient than any of the newer baseboard or mini splits etc.
Of course re-plumbing it to get all on separate thermostat zones is a big job but using pex can make it easier and a bit cheaper.

eman134 | 6 years and 11 months ago

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the thesis seems to convert the radiators to the equivalent of delonghi oil filled rads, which doesnt make a lot of sense to me…but I am often wrong

eman134 | 6 years and 11 months ago

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this seems interesting on a theoretical level…however the expense of either removing the plug or drilling and tapping the existing plug from a 100 year old radiator, and running dedicated electric lines to each and every radiator (I am assuming 120v heating elements) would seem incredibly expansive on the front end…dubious about the claim of savings on the far end…I’m a heating contractor so feel free to contact me at errol832000@hotmail.com

RobertGMarvin

in General Discussion 6 years and 11 months ago

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I think this might work very well in places were electricity is VERY cheap [maybe parts of Canada with a lot of hydro-electric power]. NYC is NOT such a place.

yudashasom | 6 years and 11 months ago

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I’m sorry I even responded.

Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago

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Aesthetics are subjective: we prefer the look of the radiators, and their thermal mass makes them better at providing heat over a longer period of time than a smaller unit that cycles on and off more frequently. According to their website, the system’s advanced efficiency makes it less expensive to operate. They are citing 15-20% decrease in cost over gas powered central heating solutions. I’d like to know if those numbers are based on real world usage.

yudashasom | 6 years and 11 months ago

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It sounds very expensive to operate. Radiators aren’t very attractive, why not eliminate them and go with heating/cooling product?