Steam radiator and furniture

hjw09

Hi I just had to rearrange my daughters bedroom. I moved her wooden vanity over her steam radiator. Will this be a safety issue once heating season comes back around?
Thank you in advance

JUGHNE

The rad will be less than 200 degrees, probably 185.
Well below the ignition temp of paper.
It may dry out the wood of the furniture though.

And if over the top of the rad it will reduce the convective heat delivery around the room. Will feel good on the knees though.

Jamie Hall

Where it's over the top of the radiator like that, it will reduce the heat output some -- but not all that much.

What it will do is take any liquid or paste material stored in the drawer and dry it out...

hjw09

Thank you for the reply. That’s what I figured I told her to store any lipstick or any other type of cosmetic in a separate drawer.

hjw09

The rooms in these old houses are not very forgiving for modern furniture Thank you for the responses

Danny Scully

It looks like it was repiped for this purpose once before.

Steamhead

That radiator is newer than the house. The original was probably a tall radiator that sat in the corner, and had to be replaced for some reason.

DelonBrooks

The same for me - right now, I'm rearranging my son's bedroom. So, as I understood, I shouldn't worry about placing wooden furniture near the steam radiator? You also wrote it may dry out the wood of the furniture - can it damage the furniture itself? I think the temperature shouldn't harm his wooden vanity, but I'm not sure. Besides, can the steam radiator cause breathing problems in case I want to place his solid frame bed near it? We have some heating problems due to wooden windows, I'm figuring out how to make his sleep comfier.

Jamie Hall

I wouldn't worry about the furniture one little bit, @DelonBrooks . In one of the places I care for there is a $200,000 grand piano, built in 1898, which sits about 8" from a very large steam radiator. It's been there since the radiator was installed in 1930. It's fine. No damage at all.

Nor will a steam radiator -- or any other radiator -- cause breathing problems. What does happen is that in the wintertime simply heating the air in a structure reduces the relative humidity. This will dry out wood, but so long as you don't use setbacks over 2 or 3 degrees it won't cause a problem that way. If the dry air causes breathing problems, you will want to use a humidifier -- but be careful not to get the humidity so high that it causes condensation on the windows.

There is, however, one caution: some cheap furniture usually of Chinese origin, may be made with glues which soften at higher temperatures. That could be an issue. Furniture of solid wood, or of European or North American origin, uses glues which aren't affected and shouldn't be a problem.