Stand Alone Hot Water Radiator Ideas

suen

First off, I'm not a professional but I've been intrigued by hydronic heating since I lived in my first apartment years ago. Recently, in December, I finally bought myself a couple of Holohan's books. Just this past weekend I was given a couple old cast iron radiators from a couple down the street who switched to a forced air system a week or so ago. They are sitting in my living room so they don't freeze.

So, I'm looking for ideas on how to use my two new toys - two small hot water radiators. Has anyone had luck converting old radiators to standalone heaters? I don't want to spend a ton but I'm open to buying a few items. I'm also not very interested in efficiency since this is mostly just for fun. I don't want to turn these into furniture pieces - I want to use them for heating in some way - hopefully without blowing anything up.

My two initial ideas are: 1) create a portable emergency heater I can use in conjunction with my fireplace. My old fireplace pulls more air out of the house than it adds in heat so I thought I could use a little wood camp stove to heat water inside the fireplace and pipe water to the radiator being careful regarding the water temp. I'm sure I'd need a pump since I can't rely on gravity. I'd also likely mount the radiator to a board with castors and store it in a closet. 2) Use a propane camp stove on my concrete and brick covered front porch and again pipe water/antifreeze to the radiator for an outdoor area in the winter.

I haven't started either project yet - I would love to hear about successful conversions from whole house heat to stand-alone heaters before I spend a lot of time.

Jamie Hall

Either one of those ideas would probably work -- although I wouldn't want to guarantee how much heat you'd get out of it.

The other thing which people do -- if they have access to enough electricity -- is partly fill (say to about half) the radiator with water (don't fill it all the way! The water expands and needs somewhere to go!)(and put a reliable aquastat on there... and maybe a pressure and temperature relief valve) and screw an electric heater element into one of the ports. That takes a lot of amperage, but you might be able to find an element which was a little less enthusiastic and ran on 15 amps instead. The benefit there instead of spending much money somewhere for an electric heater is the mass of the water and the iron holds the heat well...

hot_rod

I’ve built a few radiators with elements. You could easily run 500- 1000 W on a 120v 15A circuit
Or you can find towel bar assemblies, element, control  and overload on UK websites.

STEVEusaPA

I’ve seen them many times in Canada. Electric elements, refinished. It seems pretty popular so I’m sure some googling will help you with ideas.