Old Wall Heater NYC Lower West Side

D107

Must be hot water?
--saw no vents. One original piece or joined? Beauties.

mattmia2

Looks like 2 pipe steam but would need to see a better picture of the other end. Could be 2 pipe steam with an orifice and no steam trap or water seal on the condensate as well. Would probably have a bleeder valve if it is hot water.

And they are separate castings either bolted together on the back with push nipples or screwed together with left/right nipples.

Steamhead

They're small wall radiators joined together to make a big one, as @mattmia2 said.

It looks like the return is smaller than the supply, so that tells me it's probably steam. But we do need to see the other end.

D107

I'll see if I can get someone I know in the building to snap another shot from the other direction sometime...Considering their likely age, not many coats of paint appear to be there, so either it might have been sandblasted at one time, or, more likely, paint jobs were very infrequent in such industrial buildings. (Built 1910, 220,000 sq ft. 10 floors.)

DanHolohan

It’s steam. 

Solid_Fuel_Man

If Dan says it's steam.....then IT IS STEAM. LOL.

JohnNY

Take that out and put some fin tube there.

Solid_Fuel_Man

I agree @JohnNY. Some high quality Home Depot fin tube and some pex would really dress up that steamed iron. 

Delightful!

D107

Had someone snap a shot for me, though at this point apparently not needed to verify. To the very far right looks like a smaller rad return from the floor above paralleling the main riser? (seen better in first photo.)

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

If that's steam, I'd like to know how it works without return traps.

@mattmia2 said orifice plates, maybe?

Jamie Hall

Either orifice plates or calibrated valves -- which were very common in the day -- combined with close control of steam pressure, which was also very common in the day. Works just fine.

Now you get some happy Harry who figures if a little is good a lot is a lot better and cranks the pressure up to some astronomical level, and another one who comes along and says that his space is too cold and the valve doesn't work and replaces it with a standard valve rather than the calibrated one and... problems.

Steamhead

Maybe the trap is under the floor?