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
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).
yudashasom | 6 years and 11 months ago
It sounds very expensive to operate. Radiators aren’t very attractive, why not eliminate them and go with heating/cooling product?
Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago
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
I’m sorry I even responded.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 6 years and 11 months ago
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.
eman134 | 6 years and 11 months ago
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
eman134 | 6 years and 11 months ago
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
resident2 | 6 years and 11 months ago
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.
Master Plvmber | 6 years and 11 months ago
Fitting those radiators with anything and heating them with an electrical resistance heating element, no matter how you tart it up, is heating with electric. If you don’t mind the cost of electric heating in New York, then you’ll be fine. But, it’s going to be an air-conditioning bill every month. Heating with natural gas is far more economical in this part of the world. And don’t let that “100% (efficient)” figure fool you. It’s true of any radiator being used with any heating medium by any fuel type.
I teach a course every Monday and Wednesday evening at NYC’s Mechanics Institute called Hydronic Heating Systems and Boilers and this radiator subject comes up very often.
This is me: www.72fLLC.com
Augustiner | 6 years and 11 months ago
why on earth would anyone want to do that?
The high demand electrical wiring for that will cost you an arm and a leg. You’ll probably need to upgrade your electrical main service to be able get 15 kw to heat 3500 sqf.
Not to speak of the monthly electrical bill that will cause ($ 800 / month when it gets cold)
And that you are in fact heating with Trump coal (read up on how electricity is produced in the US), but very inefficiently
Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago
Thank you everyone who replied. I am quite surprised that no one has any experience with these, so the hunt for real world usage data continues.
We plan on installing a solar array to generate all of our home’s electricity, so the cost of electric as delivered by a utility doesn’t really come into play here.
I am still intrigued by this method as it will also allow every single rad to become individually controlled as its own zone (or grouped through a modern smart home solution). This also prevents us from having to buy and maintain a large hydronic boiler, and allows us a possible break on our insurance as their is a lot less water running throughout the space (and therefore less chance of water damage – the “new” bogeyman of the insurance industry).
@Augustiner, I am being told that the units are wired with standard 120V line just as a baseboard heater would be, so I don’t think the cost of electrical line is as much a concern as you suspected.
If anyone has any first hand experience, I would still love to hear it.
Thanks again to all who have contributed.
Master Plvmber | 6 years and 11 months ago
You still think this is good. Let me ask you: why not just cut out the middle man and install electric baseboard heaters instead of retrofitting cast iron radiators, filling them with whatever liquid, hoping they don’t leak, then adding the cost of making all that liquid and metal warm to your heating costs?
120-volt power is not the whole story. Each radiator will have an amperage draw. There is a limit to how many amps you can provide to an electrical circuit, and a limited number of amps available in your home’s electrical service.
I hope you try it and report back here. I find this to be a spectacularly absurd idea.
Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago
@Master Plvmber, I don’t know if it’s good – that’s what I’m trying to figure out – I simply said I was still intrigued as the system sounds like it checks off a lot of boxes that we may not be able to afford otherwise. I’m not discounting the input of those who have responded. They will all serve to inform my final decision.
I am, however, looking for first hand experience and real world numbers. I understand that you don’t like the idea, and I believe your concerns are valid. You’ve helped add some serious questions that need answering from the manufacturer.
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? Honest question – I am not an electrician.
We do intend to generate all of our electricity through solar po wer so after a period of time the heating should theoretically run for “free”, while a gas system will always require me to pay for gas. Cheaper gas is still more expensive than free electricity.
We are in the process of using the sizes of the rooms and their rads to determine what size element need be added to heat each space. That should give us an idea of the actual electrical consumption of each unit, which will determine the final decision.
Once I have this information I will report back.
Lurker | 6 years and 11 months ago
tl;dr response: solar is sexy and this system sounds fun, but I suspect neither solution will heat as nicely or be as efficient and cost-effective as you are hoping, and there are far better systems out there for you.
As a homeowner trying to learn lessons myself: chasing efficiencies is extremely tempting but also often illusory. There’s tons of factors to consider obviously, but consider the example of a $5,000 boiler that is 97% efficient but lasts ~10 years and which may not actually save you money over a $1500 boiler that is 85% efficient and lasts 15-20 years. (I say this as someone who bought a 97% efficient boiler). Yes it’s potentially more efficient! But heating gas is so cheap that the savings in a home may only translate to a few tens of dollars a month— and you only get that in the 6 months of heating season. While it’s great to be efficient and looks and comfort definitely count, you have to compare the cost of install and maintainance and then amortize everything over the life of the system. I can only imagine the up-front costs of setting up a 15 or 20 radiators, new wiring, potentially new service, is magnitudes larger than a solid, efficient boiler with zone controls, TRVs and so on.
For solar it’s the same situation. If you’re renovating, odds are all your new appliances will now be super efficient, you might have lots of LED fixtures, and so your electrical bill may end up being negligible (until you intall an electric heating system). Then also consider , in winter when you’ll having the electrical going full bore to heat all your radiators, there’s very little solar electrical generation going on as the days are short and not so sunny–so you’ll be buying electrical all winter long. This company should be able to tell you pretty precisely how much electricity you’ll require to power X number of radiators in a space X large with X heat loss on X degree days. I suspect the cost to install and maintain panels may never get you even with what you think you’ll save (though maybe you’ll get lucky with rebates/taxes) in electrical costs.
Putnamdenizen | 6 years and 11 months ago
This seems like an advertisement to me, rather than an honest inquiry for information. But hey, that’s just me…
Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago
@Putnamdenizen – This is not an advertisement. I’m curious, interested, and excited at it’s prospects. If this was an advertisement I would probably be crowing about it’s efficiency and/or lower costs of operation. Neither of which I know anything about at this point.
Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago
@Lurker – YES! This is getting to the heart of the matter.
Are you running hydronic? Did you zone? I’m having a hell of a time comparing costs – I haven’t found a lot of people that can confidently hydronically zone a big home (it’s a lot of PEX and pumps and mechanical accuators, which scares the bejesus out of me from an install cost and maintenance standpoint).
As far as solar is concerned: my understanding is that if you over-produce in the summer you get credits from the utility that translate to money off your bill in the winter. The solar installer we are considering guarantees 95% energy production annually, otherwise THEY pay the difference.
What I’ve found most frustrating with this radiator company, though, is that being a French Canadian company, we don’t speak a mutual language well enough to have a constructive dialogue (I don’t speak French, and the don’t speak much English), so it’s like pulling teeth and there have been a frustrating number of misunderstandings already.
Between the potential electrical upgrades, and the electrical draw of running this thing throughout the year (not to mention this forum’s somewhat surprising animosity for even considering it) I’m starting to think I should let it go.
greenworks | 6 years and 11 months ago
To OP, we have solar and the points made above by Lurker about the limitations are valid. Unless you ave an uncharacteristically large rooftop and hence a super large array, you can’t just burn electric like crazy and expect to have no or a tiny bill.
Guest User | 6 years and 11 months ago
@booisgolden – good point! What size array do you have and are you getting the generation you were promised?