installing a radiator

not sure if i should be encouraged or discourage that my simple question spurred this weird, old man pissing contest :/

jeremy, i have worked in property management for a management firm and my boss was at the top of his game. i have worked for seasoned facilities managers and i have managed repairs and projects in buildings. and of course i now run my own business. the consensus among all of us is that it is cheaper to do something right the first time. I had a budget minded boss (i was the facilities manager, he was the CFO and worried about money) and he said to me “do a temporary fix”; i told him “if i do a temporary fix i will be redoing it in six months and i have not the time and we do not have the money for that”; that was the last time he said that to me. in your case, those may work for now but if those landlords go to sell, potential buyers walk in and see stuff like that on the walls and if they know what they are, they will think “who did this?”. i run into customers now who might try to talk me into a short cut and generally i tell them the truth, it will not last or it will look like poop and i advise them the same and try to work with them to find a proper so lution; that is our job – to advise customers of the correct way to do something and it is our job to source the proper materials and when we know that something else exists that might be wrong to use, we do not show it to them. i have walked away from people who try to nickel and dime a job just because it is not the right way to do it. at this point, those people do not call me because i have developed a reputation for doing this right and the only people who call me now are people who understand that doing something right might be cheaper in the long run (people on limited budgets can still call me for emergency repairs or lock installs). if you make this your mantra, you will developed a high quality clientele. you may develop fewer of them, but they will be a better clientele who understands the value of spending a little more and have the property look right (in this case the proper radiators the plumbers are putting forth). it will pay for you now and the landlords later when they or their children go to sell. i recall people trying to explain this to me when i was younger (like 18) and did not understand it; i only began to understand it about 15 years ago and at this point i can say i like my clientele. it was not always that way.

we have all had to do things that work but do not look right. i have stuff like that in my own house and i sometimes joke with customer’s “if you saw some of the work i have done in my own house, you would not hire me”. my wife says “its the cobbler’s children with no shoes”. most of this stuff is contained to the basement and it is safe but it does not look right. i have also had to put locks on things for customers who were in tight financial situations and were not worried about look but were worried about security. and i have something like that here: i would not go to my basement right now and take a picture of the entrance door with the pushbutton lock on top where the deadbolt should be and the deadbolt where the pushbutton should be and post it here simply because it does not look right and if people do not understand it, they will think i do shoddy work. we keep those to ourselves; if that radiator is safe and legal and your clients would only pay for that one, not the other, the only mistake you made is posting that picture on here.

i cannot wait to read what the plumbers have posted later today.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-bushwick-brooklyn-building-overrun-with-rats-20220404-3jyg3hbpk5gwzl55vcicyqsod4-story.html

https://forcechange.com/601716/address-reportedly-horrendous-living-conditions-at-residential-property/

@Eman @mp did I offend the two of you so that you would slanderously assume I am a slumlord or that I was hosed for paying a plumber to do a job that others are either unfamiliar with how to do or would otherwise refuse to do? You’re using aggressive language for a forum where people seek creative and resourceful property ideas, no?

Jeremy…the only saving grace is that Paul completely hosed you by charging you $2000 for embarrassingly substandard work

> @JeremyKiltsPropMgr
> Holohan referred me to these guys when I needed to solve backpitched heating mains
I work with Dan Holohan a lot. If I show him this picture he’ll be shocked.

> @JeremyKiltsPropMgr
> They hire me to crank up rent prices
Jeremy, it’s fascinating the way you describe what you seem to think is some unique skill set working for cutthroat slumlords to overvalue tiny shit hole apartments in New York. Am I far off the mark? Are they not slumlords because their buildings are in pricey neighborhoods?
What you posted here is absolute shit. Make your money and move on but spare us all the proud, preachy soliloquy.

Bob, it also comes down to money and immediate roi. Long term, someone might want do a better job but once you do that you have to do it with everything. Short time, quicker and easier is better.

Also some people may not care or may not know what they are looking at so it won’t matter.

When this discussion happens in buildings or even with my residential customers and they are trying to get me to do something that i feel will look wrong, what it ultimately comes down to is if it is “safe and legal”. Jeremy is probably right in that it is safe and legal (and a real plumber did it). He offers a differing perspective as i have always worked for owners in properties they use for their own families, not tenants.

There’s an interesting conflict in this thread between those who favor established conventional uses of equipment and those who espouse creative work around. My gut feeling is to favor the latter, but what do I know? My house has forced hot air heat.

@tinker the only licensed plumber I have not had to correct about improper steam heat work is who installed this radiator. They might refer to it as a Kilts special because they doubtfully do it for others. And they would not do it for me until after years of working with me and realizing I am a good customer and know as much about maximizing valuable NYC rentable floor space as they do about relic heating systems. (Holohan referred me to these guys when I needed to solve backpitched heating mains for residential units above the old meatpacking district Diner when I had a fraction of the budget needed to properly fix incredible water hammer and air vent leaks.)
My clients seem to have different needs than you. They hire me to crank up rent prices and maintain and improve pre war building mechanicals. I work with plumbers who are willing to help me do so. Some plumbers are not, and that is OK.
I have never had a tenant mention that the radiators look shoddy. Based on experience, most of them don’t know how the radiators work any better than they know how magic or the int ernet works. Any comments have been appreciative that I gained another foot or two of useful floor space for them in these tiny boxes they are are arguably paying way too much to occupy.
Doing things the proper way is good. But the proper way was not always available until necessity created new application or invention of previously untried things. Ever used a Kleenex to blow your nose? I believe that was an improper or shoddy use of a Kleenex before it became more popular to use Kleenexes the way we do now.
Different strokes for different folks. Different can be wrong. And sometimes it is just right

Jeremy: as i said at the beginning of what i wrote, i am not qualified to know if that setup is safe and functions the way it should (i imagine it does). but when i saw the baseboard hanging on the wall – i felt like a “handyman” had done it and it looked “shoddy”. i would not put something like this in my own house nor allow a contractor to do it in a customer’s house – but i might install something like this in my own basement and be happy with it.

for us “old” guys (i am pushing 60 and even if that is not old in 2022, my way of thinking is a little different than that of many people younger than say 45) something just has to look shoddy to be shoddy. for myself, i have worked in scores of buildings and houses, and have worked on a lot of jobs where decades of shoddy work had been done and even if it functions as it should, enough of it makes a building look like it had been maintained by first graders who just learned finger painting (the building will look like s**t). to those of us who came up working in this, it looks like something is “wrong” an d when something looks wrong something IS wrong.

case and point: yesterday, i had to fix a copper pipe to my garden spigot. it had frozen over the winter and ruptured. when i soldered the joints together, i did not wipe the joints down. Professionals wipe the joints down. i do not know why they wipe the joints down because i am not a plumber and because i am not a plumber i did not give a toss if the solder joints to my own garden spigot were wiped. but if i were buying a house and was looking at the boiler and saw lumps of solder sticking out of the copper joints, i would question what kind of “idiot” had installed or maintained the boiler; i would question the experience level of the installer.

at this point, i can safely say i am “old” school and i suspect those plumbers are as well. we were raised in a time when if someone did not take care with ALL aspects of a job, including not only how it functioned but how it looked, the entire job was suspect; if it did not look “right”, it was “shoddy”. that is what shoddy is to us of this generation but more importantly, for people of my generation working in buildings the thought is “if they take shortcuts on the most obvious aspect – “how it looks” – what other shortcuts have they taken and when will those shortcuts appear?” the answer is not on a bright and sunny day in June.

this line of thinking was reinforced on people of my generation by people who are now in nursing homes or dead. Younger people today seem to think all of these shortcuts are acceptable and some believe that that is “the way it is done” and it is “ok”. it is not and it does not have to be and whoever that plumber was who installs those for you is, he or she should have pointed you in the direction of the correct equipment just to make the buildings look as though they were maintained by pros (even if that thing in the photo functions ok and is safe). btw, i once worked for a property management firm and my boss Jim Cranford whose company was based in North Myrtle Beach, would not have tolerated anything being installed in any manner it was not designed for even if it worked (he would have gone nuts at the suggestion). sadly, i learned that Jim passed away a couple months back and as we lose these guys, a level of professionalism goes with them.

can i ask this, was it a licensed plumber who did that install or a handyman? i am only asking out of curiosity to see if i read the installation correctly.

randolph…heres an easy visual guide to calculate btu from castiron rads
https://pdf4pro.com/view/sizing-cast-iron-radiator-heating-capacity-guide-a400.html

randolph you can definitely replace the old unit with one of these…post a photo of the existing radiator so i can calculate the btu output
https://oswaldsupply.com/products/gov-free-cast-iron-radiator-size-4-7-16-x-19-18-sections-water-steam-output-2-3-days-to-ship?variant=39527842021513&kw=MR419X18&c=Shopping&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PerformanceMax-SmartShoppingNYC&kw=&ad=&matchtype=&adposition=&c=PerformanceMaxNYC&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIu4_7n-er-QIVi8mUCR2UPQ2fEAQYAiABEgJEvfD_BwE

also here are the wall hung cast iron units that were
linked
https://ocsind.com/products/wall-hung/

hey jeremy no matter how much you rhapsodize about floor space and increasing rent that radiator install still looks like crap… and btw MP is one of best steam experts in NYC …look up his website… also I’m none too shoddy myself….

as someone who has spent an incredible amount of money on plumbing what a wild thread lol

Randolph Sorry I did not realize it was the same thread. There are a ton of specifics that go into Heating System work, so anyone who prices you out without knowing your system already would need to see it. It is just a fact of the Skilled Trades.
My advice would be to ask if anyone else in the building has had it down and go from that point

Randolph Sorry I did not realize it was the same thread. There are a ton of specifics that go into Heating System work, so anyone who prices you out without knowing your system already would need to see it. It is just a fact of the Skilled Trades.
My advice would be to ask if anyone else in the building has had it down and go from that point

JeremyKiltsPropMgr – thanks