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broken radiators

Mike Miller
Mike Miller Member Posts: 22
Good point Mike T. We just had a job that was a freeze up. HO assumed just the ones she could see were broken, we air tested the system and every single rad was cracked, along with several C.I. fittings. Mike

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  • i recently purchased a house that has broken radiators in in in. i was wondering what the most cost efficent way would be to fix this problem. i have been hearing alot of base boards. could you give me the some recomendations for replacement?
  • Mike Miller
    Mike Miller Member Posts: 22
    broken Radiators

    Get a count of the sections and then go online. There are a lot people who pull those older ones out of the houses if they put in a whole new system, re hab them and put them online for re-sale. Unless you are going to completely re-do your heating system I would not recommend base board. I have been in on too many calls where some one has done that and not bothered with heat loss or replacemnet BTU faactors and then you have usually a system that doesn't heat well with the boiler cycling too much. Mike

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  • Mike T., Swampeast MO
    Mike T., Swampeast MO Member Posts: 6,928


    Why are they broken? Frozen and burst? If so, have you carefully examined piping and fittings? Pipes often have rather long splits where the seam has burst (seems most common in long, vertical risers). Fittings often have "blow outs".

    Do the radiators have small horizontal rods running across them at the top and bottom? If so, sections can be removed and replaced. While you can almost always identify all freeze damage just by carefully looking at pipes and fittings, such is not the case with radiators.

    Depending on where you live, old radiators for replacement can vary from abundant to rare and from free for the hauling to very expensive.

    My own house had frozen and burst. Had to disassemble the entire system to replace split pipes and burst fittings. Only 3 of 17 rads didn't leak and of those many had no visible problem until I pressure tested them. If your system is similar, I'd suggest that if you don't repair MUCH yourself that wholesale replacement of the system (even if you use iron rads--yours and/or replacements) will be less costly than hiring a heating pro for the repairs.
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