This is Heartbreaking! A Steam Radiator Graveyard

jtonzola

I just did a quick search to find a steam professional in my area and this is what I saw! The worse picture is all the beautiful steam radiators laid out on the lawn after they were removed from the house so they can be replaced with baseboard water radiators. Check out the comments under the pictures. I definitely will not be using these guys to replace my boiler!! Copy and paste link in browser.
http://www.halcoenergy.com/heating/photo-gallery/1742-album-boiler-replacement-in-ithaca-ny.html#ad-image-0

Fred

Sick, Sick, Sick!

KC_Jones

I just threw up in my mouth. I pray they didn't just scrap those rads, but judging by the comments I am sure they did. I guess people really are clueless as to how valuable they are. Another thing if these are just apartments I would bet those boilers are massively oversized and really not saving as much fuel as they convinced the customer it would. Of course since they will compare it to the old improperly functioning steam system they will be fooled. No way they recover the cost of that install when compared to just fixing the steam system. Ugly radiators? If they are so ugly to people then those people need to stop buying these old houses. Buy a new house they suck as much as you will make the old house suck when your remodeling is done.

Abracadabra

"unsightly radiators" lol

Dave in QCA

While it is said that there is "no accounting for taste," there is accounting for intelligence, and these folks come up pretty short. There opinion that radiators are ugly is something that my mother would have said in 1960. Opinions have changed, and there is nothing like the comfort from cast iron radiant heat. And, my radiators don't go click click click like those awful baseboards do.

ChrisJ

"A look at all of the unsightly radiators that we took out of this Ithaca, NY apartment house."

I felt I just had a view of an unsightly contractor.

Dave0176

Been hearing waaay too many people tell me they can't a plumber because they have steam heat..............smh

Actually I think thats better then mister know it all who tells customers their system is outdated and needs to ripped out and replaced with MODERN heating......

kcopp

****...

Daniel_3

Tis a shame indeed

gerry gill

retards!

Robert O'Connor_12

fools

Abracadabra

can't we try to fix stupid? or is that out of the question?

KC_Jones

You can numb it with a 2x4, but it can't be cured.

gliptitude

The radiators in the photo are all each in one piece still. Wouldn't they have broken them into pieces before trying to move them if all they intended to do was scrap? I certainly would have. I imagine they salvaged them in one way or another.

FranklinD

Sigh. Opposite end of the spectrum here. My city is taking down 3 old, interconnected buildings, built in 1888 or so. There are 38 hot water radiators in the buildings running off of one centrally located, original boiler, with a conversion oil gun installed, along with a few big circulators to 'help' the old gravity system along. Most of the rads are Arco 3 columns, though the most recently used part of the building has some newer 6-tube rads. One central thermostat. The buildings themselves are in bad shape and are condemned.

I work for the city. Our head building inspector is handling the bidding out of the contents (TONS of old tools, small steam engines, and so on jammed into the huge basement). The owner (same family for 100 years) was a collector of anything and everything, and lots of tools and equipment from the Frasier Shipyards nearby. They have sold most of the stuff in the building now, including original tin and copper ceiling plates, and made a ridiculous amount of money to pay for the asbestos abatement and demolition (owner couldn't pay out of pocket - long sad story).

I emailed the inspector about purchasing a single radiator to use in my basement. Even now, tonight, at -9*F, the boiler is running and still heating the empty building, as it will until the 3 new 500 gal oil tanks are empty. So I know the rads are good.

He emailed back saying I was welcome to put in a bid for the removal of "all mechanical systems within the structure including the heating system". That's the only way they'll do it. He went on to inform me that I don't know what I'm talking about, as these radiators are extremely rare and worth thousands of dollars apiece, and so on. Sigh.

The last building we took down was a similar story...and all the radiators got trucked down to the scrapyard for $15/ton. That's what will happen this time too I'm sure.

So they'll all end up scrapped simply because a single person is OVER-VALUING them. Sheesh. I'm going to try to find out who won the bid when the time comes, and contact them directly. Maybe I'll have better luck.

At any rate, $5 says the radiators will still be in the building when the wrecking ball hits it. Stupid.

And the contractor in the post above is also stupid. Hey, maybe those fancy new boilers are only 10k btu apiece, right? Pfffffft.

FranklinD

Another find from that building...my coworker (our welder/fabricator) fell in love with this baby and I helped him haul it up and out of the basement through an outside bulkhead. This was a month ago...he has it running and functioning now. I think he said he found a casting date of 1914 on it somewhere.

vibert_c

Last summer I bid on an entire residential system gravity hot water that was installed in 1908. Nine Radiators and a SF Intrepid boiler from 2013. My bid for the cost of the oil in the tank was accepted and I was estatic. There were no other bids. Moral of story, "nothing ventured nothing gained"