Reinstalling Radiator System?

[SouthernLady]

The total square footage of my home is 2,882, but that also includes the old blacksmith shop/loft building which is attached to the back of the house (making it into my "modern" living room so I don't have to hide the TV and can let my friends' little tots roam free without fear of breaking 150-year-old antiques. A friend calls it "Amish in the front, normal in the back".), as well as the hallway connector. I am not sure as to what the square footage is for the actual house itself.

As far as bleeding the pipes, I mean the actual plumbing system. Everything had already been removed for the radiators years ago, including all radiators and the boiler, so all that is left is the holes in the floor where the radiators once stood. I would assume that to mean there is nothing left in the radiator system itself, right?

Fortunately, where I live is only 8 miles from Old Salem and 10 miles from the historic West End Historic District, which is abundant with Victorian and Edwardian homes with functional radiator systems, so I shouldn't have any trouble finding a plumber with experience when the time comes.

I am also blessed to have quite a number of salvage places around me and have made friends with a few of them who have been keen to cut breaks for me as they consider it "highly unusual" for a single gal in her late 20s undertaking a restoration project on her own who is taking the time to glean from others' knowledge.

Well, I guess this project will be quite a few years out as I must remove the aluminum/vinyl siding first. My neighbor/dad/I have killed a good number of red wasps inside my home in the past week (cold weather/warm weather fluctuations bringing them in), and the pest control guy said I am going to keep having this problem to this level until I get the siding off and get rid of their happy hiding places...

Does any type of radiator work? I mean, are the fittings all the same? Should I start buying smaller radiators as I find and can afford them, they should all hook up the same, right?

[Neighmond]

People add on to their system all the time, no reason you can't do a "whole house addition!" The actual mechanics of the matter depends on the system. Steam and hot water can use the same radiators, with some modification, and most of the fittings are by and large still available. Sit with a good engineer and decide whether you want hot water or steam, single or double pipe, and you can run the lines as you get time and finances permit. Have a plumber show you how to do the joints and you can run them yourself and save money and be sure it's how you want it done. As for the radiators, there are formulas for determining the surface area of radiators to the room ratio, but re-sizing old radiators after thy have been together for umpteen years may well be like trying to put the baby back into the womb, so it's best to find the size of radiator closest to what you anticipate needing. If needs must be, a trifle larger is better than smaller. You'll also want to make sure and treat the water that the system uses to balance the ph, so you get maximum life from the components.

Good luck!
Chaz

[Ireland House]

Do you really want a whole new heating system, or do you just miss the radiators in certain rooms? My brother in law took old cast iron radiators, filled them with oil, and made electric heaters. They work great.

[Texas_Ranger]

First question: hot water or steam. Since you say there's little (if anything) left of your old system, I'd go with hot water. You need more pipes (hot and return to each radiator) but the surface of the radiator doesn't get as hot and it should be much easier to control. If there are two holes underneath each radiator you had hot water anyway. In case of steam there's only one pipe that takes steam to each radiator where the steam then condenses and the water runs back to the boiler in the same pipe.

Single vs. double pipe: IMO single pipe systems aren't worth bothering with if you're starting from scratch. They need all sorts of specialised fittings and complicated tune-up and in some cases you can't even turn off one radiator without killing all downstream ones and that could be half the house.

A double-pipe hot water system, possibly with thermostatic radiator valves, is probably the most straightforward new system you can get. I know there are people who do it, Daniel at Manhattan Nest blog has it done in his new old house in Kingston, NY.

[vvzz]

I just went through a process of reinstalling cast iron hot water radiators in my 2400 sq ft italianate. When I bought the house it had 3 boilers running baseboard heaters. I took it all out and installed a new boiler and radiators(which I have been collecting via craigslist for a few months)

Overall, this is a doable project, but definitely very complex.

[SouthernLady]

I just realized I failed to reply to this thread... too many irons in the fire, I reckon...

As there are two holes in the floor where the radiators once were, I had a hot water system. I would absolutely love to go completely back to a radiator system in the house, and have come close to going ahead and starting to collect old radiators for future installation.

Would heating by hot water radiators and fireplaces (on occasion) be cheaper in the long run than heating by a propane heating system?

[Texas_Ranger]

I suppose a hot-water system might end up being slightly cheaper than a forced-air system but that's more like an educated guess. With radiators that store heat you might not have to run the system as much to get comfortable but the amount of energy required to heat the same room is more or less identical regardless of how you transfer the heat from the source to the room.

The main advantages of hot water are that water pipes are MUCH smaller than air ducts (if you get a modern system with a circulation pump you'll end up with a mix of 3/4 and 1/2" pipes I guess, gravity-fed systems need larger pipes up to 3" but I doubt there's anyone around these days who can design such a system from scratch) and that it's quiet. If you do get someone to design a gravity-fed system and have a wood-fired backup boiler you could even run the heat without electricity!