Steam and Copper Pipes

CD

I would like to bring steam heat to the second floor of my home. I currently have a radiator in the Kitchen that I do not use (turned it off) and one in the bathroom that I do use. I would like to remove the radiator from the bathroom and have the bathroom heated by the pipe going to the second floor. I went to a very popular building material store and was told that I can use copper pipes to take the heat to the second floor and that the pipes will be ample heat for the bathroom. I'm a do-it-yourselfer and have worked with copper pipes. Using copper pipes would make the job very easy for me. Now here are my questions:
1) Can I bring heat to the second floor using copper pipes?
2) Will the pipes provide ample heat to the bathroom? The size of the bathroom is about (8x6)

Bryan_5

CD,
I am not the expert on this subject. But I seen your post sitting here. If you have steam heat do not use copper! It will not hold up. I am sure some of the other guys can give you more info. Steam heat requires iron pipe.

ed wallace

steam and copper pipes

very bad idea to do what you propose the kitchen radiator most likely will be way oversized for the bathroom and useing copper with steam is very very bad idea the copper joints can melt out over time and then you will have a steam bath where you realy dont want one

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Steamhead

CD, the reason you shouldn't use copper

is because the soldered joints won't "give" as the pipe expands and contracts. And since copper expands more than steel, this is a big problem! This can break soldered joints loose, even if you use hard solder.

Use black steel threaded pipe and have a pro install it, running a separate riser from the steam main to the second floor bath. You really will be glad you did.

I agree that the kitchen radiator will probably be too big for the bathroom. But you should be able to find good used radiators somewhere near you. Do a heat-loss calculation on the rooms you want to add radiators to. This will tell you what size radiator to get, and also determine the pipe size of your new riser.

To find a contractor who can handle this, go to the "Find a Contractor" page of this site and follow the instructions. If you're in the Baltimore area, e-mail me!

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