History: A radiator used at the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital. Toronto.

BDMitchell

Hey Everyone,

My name is Ben Mitchell and I'm an assistant curator at the Lakeshore Grounds Interpretive Centre in Toronto.

We've just got an artefact from the old psychiatric hospital. A radiator. It's a Barnes & Jones Inc. brand, made in Boston in 1950. There's a letter that looks to be both a T and an F on the cap of it, which I take to mean that it uses a trap and float style steam trap, but I'm not really an expert on the matter.

I just thought I'd put it out there in the hopes that anyone might know more about those kinds of radiators, and if there was any particular reason why the hospital might have chosen them in particular.

Below I attached a picture.

Cheers, and many thanks for any suggestions,

~Ben

BobC

I wasn't aware they made radiators, is the radiator itself marked as Barnes and Jones or is it just the trap? I'm sure @Sailah can give you some info on this.

Bob

Sailah

We never made radiators. We probably made the steam trap though. If you give me a good clear picture of the top and side of the trap I'll ID it and look through the archives to see if I can pull up any drawings showing the trap in question. Our old draftsman used to tag all our drawings with locations and dates so who know I may get lucky.

STEVEusaPA

I don't think that radiator was made in 1950.

Sailah

I think I figured it out.

The trap is an old Dunham Bush 1E. Our repair kit for that trap is a 1950. So it would say 1950 on the cover. You have an old style cover. My new one is the same exact shape and that is almost certainly a 1E Dunham-Bush trap now Mepco. It's a thermostatic trap, no float involved.

So like the antiques roadshow I regret to inform you that it isn't really unique sorry. But I would still like to see a nice picture of the cover.

I'll leave the experts to comment on the radiator.

Steamhead

It's a hospital-type column radiator. These were made with more spacing between the sections to make them easier to clean. If I had to guess, I'd say it was made by American Radiator Co., and is either a Detroit or Rococo model without the scrollwork. Yes, they did make Detroits and Rococos this way.

Look at the end sections. They probably say "American Radiator Co" on them. You might find the model name cast into the radiator around the pipe connection that has the trap.

The system it came out of was probably a Dunham Vapor or Vacuum system.

Hap_Hazzard

I thought it looked like the Peerless Hospital radiator, but the legs are different, and it has those raised bars at the top of each section, but then, all hospital radiators looked pretty similar. The devil is in the details.

BDMitchell

Hey All,

Wow, thank you so much for this!

It's ok that it's super common (that's part of what makes its history). Knowing that it was common to hospitals is great to hear. I didn't realize that the name on the cap would be different than the make of the radiator itself, so that is also very helpful.

I'm back on site now. Here are some more pictures with more distinguishing features. I'm afraid I don't quite know about whether or not we can open up the radiator to see the date inside, but I'll check with the chief curator about that.

Since we wouldn't have been able to do this without your help I hope you folks don't mind if we thank you (or more generally "the people at Heatinghelp.com") on the display when it's made.

Thanks everyone for your time and interest!

Cheers,

~Ben