Reasons We Love Our Radiators

Steamhead

Thought I'd share this- The Lovely Naoko knows the best way to dry out her gloves.

Tinman

I just put one in my garage. 

cross_skier

Around here hot towels when you get out of the shower feels awesome

Solid_Fuel_Man

Cast is a blast!

The kids rooms, run the same temp as the radiant slab downstairs.

mel57

I remember, as a child, after a long hard day playing in the snow. Laying on top of one, drying  off, and thawing out. I miss that.

cross_skier

Bringing life back into unique old objects with a lot of history  

flat_twin

Solid_Fuel_Man said:

Cast is a blast!

The kids rooms, run the same temp as the radiant slab downstairs.

Our Weil Mclain rads look like these six column ones that solid_fuel_man has. They're great for resting your cold tired butt on when you come in from the outdoors. Those rounded top rads don't look near as comfortable.

Steamhead

Same radiator, a few years ago:

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/160560/smart-cat

hot_rod

I’ve head say you can melt a cat on a radiator?

mattmia2

Steve Minnich said:

I just put one in my garage. 

hmm, that could be the solution to my not enough delta t across the unit heater to push as much heat as i need across the hx that isolates the glycol loop out to the garage.

nicholas bonham-carter

When visiting my daughter in Minnetonka, when the temperature, (with no wind chill), was -30 F outside, putting my hands on the Amtrol indirect hot water tank was heaven, after snow blowing.
Interesting enough was the Burnham hot water boiler next to the tank, was not as warm!—NBC

JakeCK

I love the fact that the colder it gets the better it heats and feels.

During a particular cold night during a polar vortex I could feel the two radiators in the living room from clear across the room. I had just came down the steps and as soon as my face came out from behind the wall to face them I could feel the radiant energy.

PC7060

Haha, thought every one put the extra radiators in their shop

Solid_Fuel_Man

Of course all of these are heated by wood.... I sand blasted and painted them with automotive paint. 

@flat_twin good eye, those pictured are Weil McLain. I have a couple of square ARCOs as well. All 1950s salvage....the boring ones. 

scott w.

Seeing the infra red photo's of the rads that look like gold made me think of this question. Is cast iron the best metal for a radiator? If you could afford it what would be the upside and the downside (other than cost) of having a radiator made out of solid gold compared to cast Iron? Would most likely have to add other metals to the gold so it would not be to soft to connect to a threaded pipe. Just curious, would the gold radiator have more heat output than cast iron, copper, aluminium?

Jamie Hall

No... in fact, if it were shiny, it might have less -- perhaps much less! Consider heat shields in space...

The heat output is related to the emissivity of the material, not the material itself -- so dull rough pretty much anything is going to be better than bright shiny pretty much anything.

bucksnort

I remember as a little lad after waking up sitting on a radiator downstairs just a cooking heat before breakfast. Brings back memories of joy. My home of the past 35 years has them. I couldn't think of any other way to have heat.

MarjPinard

I saw the post of putting wet gloves on the rad and yes, it's so true and wonderful. My son comes over for AM coffee, puts his gloves on the rad to dry and warm up. Then he sets his coffee cup on the square plate on the rad to keep it warm while he drinks it! Yup, those rads are glowing as we enter the 4th week of single digit weather.

MaxMercy

I grew up in a house with cast iron baseboard radiators and my current house has two low speed hydro-air handlers. I honestly don't feel the difference in comfort although my current house is draft free compared to the old one, so maybe that's the difference.

One thing about the hydro-air that was nice was when we had no heat for three days during a early winter ice storm and the house was at 45 F. Not even 10 minutes after the power came back, warm tropical air was pumping out of the registers. Within half an hour we were close to 60 and it felt like 80 at that point.

As a kid, I remember running in from the outside and sitting on the steam radiators in grammar school and later at high school on those bitter NE mornings. Nothing like baked ham on a cold winter day..

dermzcont

I saw the post of putting wet gloves on the rad and yes, it's so true and wonderful. My son comes over for AM coffee, puts his gloves on the rad to dry and warm up

jesmed1

Jamie Hall said:

No... in fact, if it were shiny, it might have less -- perhaps much less! Consider heat shields in space...

The heat output is related to the emissivity of the material, not the material itself -- so dull rough pretty much anything is going to be better than bright shiny pretty much anything.

Speaking of how paint colors and sheens affect radiator emissivity, here's a blast from the past. Unfortunately it isn't very easy to read, but the chart at the end is interesting (click on the radiator-color pdf link). According to the chart in the link, a white enamel finish was just as good (and very slightly better) than unpainted cast iron at emitting heat (I assume that was by convection and radiation combined. I find that surprising, because I would have guessed unpainted black cast iron would be a better heat emitter than white enamel.

https://heatinghelp.com/systems-help-center/does-the-color-of-a-radiator-matter/#:~:text=But have read in my,than same shaped colored gray.

hot_rod

Dry out cats also

tim smith

One of my faves we did.