Anyone ever seen this style steam rad?

JXH

They look very cool, but I can't find info on them anywhere. Trying to calculate square footage of EDR and though I could try to use something similar, these are pretty d*mn unique!

BobC

First time I've seen that style, looks like it could have been used as a wall unit without the end sections.

SgtMaj

Those are some good looking radiators.

Mad Dog_2

No, get as close as you can on charts.  Gorgeous..what State and City is that in?  Mad Dog 🐕 

JXH

This is in a church in Baltimore, MD. The church was sold to the Seventh-Day Adventist church back in 1950. It was originally a Hebrew Temple.

Steamhead

I think that's a Clogston, and yes, we have charts for radiators like this. Go here:

https://www.heatinghelp.com/systems-help-center/ribbed-and-ringed-radiator-ratings/

and here:

https://www.heatinghelp.com/systems-help-center/clogston-radiator-patent/

delcrossv

Very cool!

guzzinerd

Amazing

Theo_G

That has to be in the top 10 of the most beautiful radiators I have ever seen. I agree that it looks like a "special edition" Clogston of some type. The pyramidal legs give it away. The radiators with textures to increase the surface area have always been some of my favorites. At my old house I had a Whittier. The bottom one with inline sections is really quite something, love how the diamond pattern rolls over the top. Would love to find one for my back parlor, it has a tube type that looks entirely wrong for the house.

JXH

I agree, it is one of the most unique rads I have ever seen! Very cool. Thanks for the info everyone.

gerry gill

Thats a real work of art!!

Mad Dog_2

Clogston?????  The Hydronic Savant strikes again!!  Steamhead is unreal....Mad Dog 🐕 

Tom Sherman

Very cool!

SKYPAINTER

I'll play devils advocate here. We Americans preach to one another about the need for high efficient everything, from our electric appliances, automobiles and most especially our heating/cooling systems. Then we come across these antiquated steam systems with their 100+ year old radiators and we just seem to forget about efficiency because the rads look so "neat" or "artistic" and it seems we must keep them in service no matter what. These systems represent an era long, long gone!! It's time to update that old steam system to something more efficient, that goes for ALL steam, everywhere except perhaps in an industrial application that requires steam like mushroom farms or papermills. Yes, it might cost an arm & leg but isn't our future worth that? It's not going to get any cheaper!! If you really love those old radiators, pull them out and put them in a museum where they belong on display for the by-gone times of ancient
heating. Bra-ha-ha-ha!!

Long Beach Ed

I'll often gladly forgo efficiency for better aesthetics. I don't mind a small percentage of my money going up in smoke. And I don't subscribe to "the science" about "climate change".

We each have choices to make. This is a personal choice. I like my radiators old, iron and pretty.

"Remove not the ancient landmark which thy father hath set..."

Robmellow62

We have 2 radiators like the last picture, the silver one, at one of our Metro Nashville buildings, built late 1800s.  They were/are beautiful as well as functional 

Grallert

SKYPAINTER said:

I'll play devils advocate here. We Americans preach to one another about the need for high efficient everything, from our electric appliances, automobiles and most especially our heating/cooling systems. Then we come across these antiquated steam systems with their 100+ year old radiators and we just seem to forget about efficiency because the rads look so "neat" or "artistic" and it seems we must keep them in service no matter what. These systems represent an era long, long gone!! It's time to update that old steam system to something more efficient, that goes for ALL steam, everywhere except perhaps in an industrial application that requires steam like mushroom farms or papermills. Yes, it might cost an arm & leg but isn't our future worth that? It's not going to get any cheaper!! If you really love those old radiators, pull them out and put them in a museum where they belong on display for the by-gone times of ancient
heating. Bra-ha-ha-ha!!

Interesting that you would blame the emitters for the efficiency of this system not knowing what the source is. Sure we can make assumptions but should we? There are not too many more efficient ways to store and deliver heat energy than high mass cast iron emitters. We really should be picking on the building envelope, though we can only assume what that is.

BobC

Going over to heatpumps is fine IF your power delivery is rock solid and affordable. In my area electricity costs 4X that of natural gas and that pretty much tells me they are going to have a hard time being a practical replacement untill things change. . I think heatpumps are great for cooling and supplemental heating but just impractical if rely on them alone in areas like this.

It's better toupgrade a homes air sealing and insulation so it takes less energy.

ethicalpaul

In my area electricity costs 4X that of natural gas

Curious, what does this mean?

delcrossv

ethicalpaul said:

In my area electricity costs 4X that of natural gas

Curious, what does this mean?

Easy conversion: One Therm (US) = 100,000 BTU59°F = 105,480,400 joules = 29.3001111 kWh.

ethicalpaul

But you weren't the one who said his electricity is 4x the cost of natural gas...I was wondering what it meant to him.

I just looked at my bill to compare.

My gas is $1.04 per therm (this includes supply and delivery charges)

My electric is $5.59 per therm (again, includes supply and delivery)

It sounds bad but that comparison would be like me having a 100% efficient gas boiler vs heating my house with toasters.

delcrossv

ethicalpaul said:

But you weren't the one who said his electricity is 4x the cost of natural gas...I was wondering what it meant to him.

Just saying that's how I'd make the comparison. $/therm vs $/kWh. Gas is considerably cheaper here as well.

EdTheHeaterMan

ethicalpaul said:

In my area electricity costs 4X that of natural gas

Curious, what does this mean?

I am going to take a guess here Paul
My father has a home that was identical to the homes on either side of the home. The neighbor to the left owned an electrical supply business and displayed a medallion that claimed his home was "All Electric"

The neighbor to the right was heated by a gas boiler

Being an oil dealer, our home was heated by oil.

So my father asked if the neighbors would be kind enough to share their heating bills with him for comparison of heating 3 identical homes using 3 different fuel sources.

The "All Electric Medallion" home was offered a reduced rate for electricity. So the comparison was a bit tainted on the electric side, However out of the three homes, the electric heated home with the special rate was still more expensive to heat than in the Gas or Oil heated home. (comparison was in the 1960s in Philadelphia county)

So I'm guessing that @BobC has a means to compare heating with electric resistance and fossil fuel, and the price difference was a factor of 4. Like $100.00 of electricity did the same job as $25.00 of Gas. That would mean that you need a heat pump with a COP of 4 for electric to be equal to Gas heat,


But this is only a guess.
And it is a fact that 64.2% of statistics are made up.... I know that because I just made this one up!

ethicalpaul

I guess I should have said "what does this mean to you, @BobC ?"

EdTheHeaterMan

I will be the Devil’s Opponent @SKYPAINTER
Steam boilers in homes are for the most part an 80% to 85% AFUE fossil fuel appliances. Electric steam boilers are 100% efficient. However, that does not take into account that the delivery system is much more efficient. The amount of energy stored in just one pound of water (that is slightly over one pint) when it is converted to steam is over 950 BTU. That is called Latent Heat. Explained simply: to convert one pound of 212°F water at sea level into 100% steam at 212°F takes 970 BTU of energy. That is where the efficiency of steam happens. That is because it is so easy to move that steam from the source to the emitter without any other mechanical devices. Just a small pressure difference at one end of a pipe will move all that heat to the destination very efficiently. In some cases only a few ounces of pressure are all that is needed.

Add to your argument that radiators can be heated by water. And there are some devices that heat water with amazing efficiencies exceeding to 97% AFUE in some cases. Your blatant disregard for a heating emitter that has both function and beauty is by some standards satanic. But being his advocate, you may take that as a complement.

Dave in QCA

@SKYPAINTER Your comment was made under the premise of being the "devil's advocate". On that basis, you are well qualified. However, you seemed to be not so qualified on the basis of science or engineering, other than the assumption that "new is good and old is bad".

If you are going to figure "efficiency", you need to know on what basis you are figuring. On the basis of amount of heat coming out of a radiator compared to the amount going in, the efficiency of the radiator is 100%. Yes, 100% efficient.

NJ08534

Hmmmm.   I think Skypainter is right. We should think of the future and make all new things as efficient as possible both in energy and materials consumption. We should also dump all that old stuff that’s not as efficient as the new, regardless of aesthetics or form.

I propose we follow Skypainters remarks to remove steam because it’s not as efficient as it could be.  Logically, according to this concept, we must build all new buildings with an interior curling height of 7’2 because very few humans are taller than this and it is a waste of heating space and constriction materials. Next, just as we are retrofitting/ replacing those old aesthetic radiators to museums, we must change the height of each floor in all existing buildings to 7’2. This will make them more efficient too. We can make the ceiling heights of museum floors higher of course because we will be using those to enjoy aesthetics and display aesthetic objects. 

Next we can limit the numbers and varieties of paints that is produced and applied.  We don’t need so many and paint is really only aesthetic in purpose. Much more efficient to have only a few colors, say yellow, beige and green.  We can toss the others for the sake of energy efficiency. We can perhaps use some special colors to paint those radiators in the museums but that is a topic of further discussion. 

 Next we should replaces all passenger vehicles That have more than 5 seats or get less than 40 miles per gallon. They are not efficient and they pollute too much. Most of the time, cars with even five seats have only one person in them. Why take 4500 pounds of steel and rubber to work every day and place it in an asphalt filled for 8’hours and then drive it home when you could just do the same with only 2900 lbs of steel and rubber. 

Hey as a matter of fact, let's get rid of all those combustion autos and replaces them with electric autos. Only 30% of the energy burned in a gas car is is used in locomotion compare to about 80% on a gas
electric battery car.  (One reason why their cost per mile per drive is so much less than a gas car…)

Or maybe, just maybe, a few steam boilers and a few gas cars and a few 9’ cielings can remain in service for a while….   As long as we continue to build solar and wind and perhaps (safer, new) nuclear designs as rapidly as possible….  

NJ08534

PS  sorry for the typos…. Big thumbs here after a day twisting iron!  

I love this radiators!!  Need to source a set!!!  

PRR

> Trying to calculate square footage of EDR
The top one: is it like 24" tall and 6" deep? Then one side of each unit is 24"*6" or 2'*0.5' or one square foot. Two sides so 2sf/unit. 7 units so 7*2sf is 14sf per assembly. Yes there are "fins" but not like a WWII aircraft engine (thin/deep). Almost more for looks and to damp the klang. It's probably not going to double the surface area. I'd dartboard a factor like 1.5 so about 21 square feet per assembly. (That's remarkably like the number in the ribbed-and-ringed-radiator-ratings doc cited here; do you suppose some Dead Man used a similar process to prepare that listing instead of actually testing every model?)
Your lower model may be more decorative than high-BTU. 5 or 10 square feet?

Steamhead

JXH said:

This is in a church in Baltimore, MD. The church was sold to the Seventh-Day Adventist church back in 1950. It was originally a Hebrew Temple.

@JXH , if you need some help with this system, let me know.

Sylvain

@SKYPAINTER

SKYPAINTER said:

I'll play devils advocate here. We Americans preach to one another about the need for high efficient everything, from our electric appliances, automobiles and most especially our heating/cooling systems.

One should think about the rebound effect of optimisation.
read about the Jevons paradox and rebound effect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebound_effect_(conservation)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazzoom–Brookes_postulate