plumbing radiators for hot water

Peter_6

hi, i'm having hot water boiler installed and am using mostly baseboard but i have some old steam radiators which can be used for hot water and i want to use a couple of them for bathroom and kitchen.

my question is this: what is the proper way to plumb these into the loop, enter in bottom and exit on the top on the other side, or enter and exit both in bottom with a valve on the top? how will the heat best spread evenly in the radiator?

Mike T., Swampeast MO

The interior passages in iron rads are so large that it's kind of difficult not to get even heating with water. Both connections (and hand valve) on bottom is extremely common and works fine. For convenience you might want to put the hand valve (supply/return doesn't matter but supply is generally assumed) on top, with the other on the opposite end from the bottom. While I've never felt such, people even say that rads of reasonable size heat OK when connected on the same side and without any special fitting.

Peter_6

thanks for the reply. wow, the idea of piping supply and return on one side is attractive, seems a little risky though.

Bob Depew

radiator

you can pipe the radiator any of the three ways. bottom to bottom, top to bottom across, top to bottom same side. one thing to watch for is if you have on a pump by itself bottom to bottom some times blows across and you dont get as much heat as you should. slow and steady in a radiator get a more even heat.

tommyoil

I only

Hope they aren't steam only radiators.