A Thing for Radiators
Here’s a guest post that a reader sent in: The cold weather is here and we are now thinking of heating our homes. Some people collect rare coins, others collect baseball cards, I collect radiators. How crazy is that?!
Here’s a guest post that a reader sent in…The cold weather is here and we are now thinking of heating our homes. Some people collect rare coins, others collect baseball cards, I collect radiators. How crazy is that?! I bought my brownstone 10 years ago, it was built in 1910 and I remembered being really bothered by the plain radiators it had. This was the time when plain Edwardian style was in and the ornamental Victorian radiators were out. So I said the heck with it and started searching for interesting ornamental radiators, restoring them and installing them in our house. I remember thinking, “it’s a large functional object in my space, so it should be attractive”. The variety of style in the castings I find really interesting. Some of the designs look like stylized flames and clouds of steam. They breathe and hiss with such personality too. One of the earliest ones I have has a lace shelf on top and has a stamping on it that reads J.R. Reed’s Patent April 9. 1878. Another one has a floral design from the American Radiator Co. It has a humidifier that works really well. My cat loves to drink from it for some strange reason. Recently I found one of the rarest examples in a ghost town in PA. It sat in an old bar that hasn’t been in use for 70 years. This odd radiator has a built in warming oven that works much like a hot plate keeping food warm. It was made for fancy dining rooms at the turn of the century. It works surprisingly well, just yesterday it kept a cup of coffee warm at 110 degrees.
Check out this neat book with drawings of many radiators including the ones in the picture at the top of the page:
http://books.google.com/books?id=bWMJAAAAIAAJ
We have a few anciet radiators in our home in Kensington. Any idea who is willing to pick them up or where we can sell them? Thanks for any tips you may have.
A note on efficiency:
The term doesn’t apply to radiators because all radiators are 100% efficient.
That means that all the energy put into a radiator is given off to the air surrounding it so long as there is a difference in temperature from one to the other.
Efficiency is the result of the fuel-burning appliance and the distribution system.
Nice radiators!
Good one GHB! How in the world did I miss that one! Well, I now know what I want for my birthday. Thanks!
“I just lay flat in the back yard and let the stripper do most the work.”
Sounds like heaven!
Wonderful post, and wonderful pictures! This is the kind of quirky stuff that keeps bringing me back to the this site.
Good point Brenda. Engine-block paint is rated for high temps and the paint will not crack like other paints. I’ve had a seam give out once too and had to scrap that project. It’s best to check for leaks before you bother the time consuming task of refinishing. If a radiator takes a strong hit they can open a seam They do weigh a ton but they have to be handled with some care if you’re bringing them in from the street. Chemical stripper works well. I just lay them flat on a dolly in the back yard and let the stripper do most the work. A wire brush and a water hose with a power sprayer gets the job done.
3:02: Don’t know which green manual you’re reading, but being in the business myself, I can assure you you’re exaggerating.
Steam heat is slightly less efficient than hot water (82% vs 94%); but if you can run hot water through radiators, they’re exactly the same as your baseboards.
And radiators are a great design element. And steam provides some humidity.
We have radiators ranging from 100 yrs old to modern, and older is better–not just the fanciful design, but the steam-beast efficiency and power of the things. (By efficient, I mean at heating the room–not “energy-efficient.”) We’ve spray-painted them silver with special auto engine-block paint; anything else will stink when they heat up, we were told. But so far we have never tried to save one when a seam in the feet sprang a leak; for ours, that has been a death sentence. (Hasn’t happened very often, though.)