Dirt on wall from raditors

Ken Alexander

Why do you get dirty walls from steam raditors?

Constantin

Just a guess...

... warm convective currents created by the warm radiators... these air currents carry the dust up from the floor area and may encounter a cold wall, where whatever objects (dust, soot, etc.) then get deposited.

It is one reason that homeowners are told over and over that their baseboard inlets have to be kept clean. If the intakes get clogged, the possible heat transfer goes down to nil and momma gets unhappy. And as we all know, when momma aint't happy then no one is happy. So lift those baseboards higher off the floor if wall-to-wall carpeting is going to get installed or the house will be colder...

However, don't blame the radiator for the dirty walls, blame yourself. Humans, animals, etc. generate a ton of dust in the form of dead skin particles, dirt tracked in from the outdoors, smoking etc. Were it not for all these man-made pollutants inside houses, then the walls would stay pretty clean. In particular, the recent craze for scented candles has led to wide-spread soot problems inside homes...

Rudy

dirt on the walls

please dont forget about cooking grease and friends

S Ebels

Slight correction in your verbage

The radiators do not make the dirt. The dirt is already present in your house and the air currents going past the radiators carry it along with the air flow. It is then deposited on surfaces adjacent to the rads. You notice the acculmulation there because all the air in your home is being drawn toward, and funneled through/around the rads since they are the motive force behind the air movement.

What's the answer? These may or may not be viable options but you could: Clean your house, get rid of upholstered furniture and carpet, no smoking (candles/cigars/cigarettes/pipe), make sure your dryer vent is properly connected and tight, install an exhaust hood over your kitchen stove or make sure the one you have is vented outside correctly, buy a self contained air filter such as a TFP model from LifeBreath. This last option would help you in more ways than you know as far as health and indoor air quality are concerned.

Lastly, for an excellent read on indoor air quality, pick up a book titled "Help my house is killing me". You can find it on Barnes & Noble or Amazon and it'll scare you to find out what is living in the house with you. We have one upholstered chair, the rest of the furniture is leather. We have only two small rooms which are carpeted left and that will be gone in a couple more years. Result: I haven't had a cold or flu for two years. Before that, I had nearly constant sinus problems. My wife had a mild cold this winter and that's it. I attribute the change to geting rid of most of the debris holding surfaces in our house.