No control over radiator temperature, it's way too hot, what do I do?

Zairenzu · December 13

Here is what my radiator looks like. It's gas that heats up water (not steam) which pumps through the walls. There is no valve or any control over the heating. We can't change the temp as it would make the apartments above me too cold. It goes up to about 25 degrees in my apartment which is way too hot for me. It also is making my room extremely dry (25-30% humidity). So I open my window, which makes it too cold sometimes (Canada eh?), and I'm sick so it's really hard for me to keep getting up and down to open and close the window. As for the humidity, I have a humidifier but if I open the window and turn on a fan all the humidity gets sucked out. The humidifier is even rated for a room double my room's size.

So any suggestions? My landlord is looking into if a valve can be installed but I'm not sure if it can be for this type of heater. What can I do in the meantime?

Larry Weingarten · December 13

Might you have some sort of heat resistant blanket or towel/s you can drape over the radiator to limit its heat output? I just read that clothes dryers operate at 125F to 150F. You don't want to damage fabrics… Hmmm. Maybe unrolling some aluminum foil over the radiator would do the trick. 🤠

Yours, Larry

bburd · December 13

If you can easily remove the cover from the front of the baseboard, wrap some of the finned element inside in aluminum foil.

if you can't get the cover off easily, tape over some of the openings at the top so air cannot circulate through the fins inside. Duct or adhesive tape may work; if it peels off, you may need to use something stronger like metal foil tape.

There will still be partial heat from the radiant front of the baseboard. You may need to experiment with how many holes to tape over to find the right balance.

Zairenzu · December 13

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1826559#Comment_1826559

Yeah, I just installed some insulation I had lying around with some tape, hopefully this does something. But was looking for a more concrete solution to be honest.

Larry Weingarten · December 13

Hi, Ultimately installing a valve, like a globe valve, so you can throttle the flow sounds like a good and fairly simple solution. Heat output can be reduced by slowing water flow through the heater, or by slowing/stopping air flow through it… or both. It is usually the landlord's legal responsibility to keep living spaces habitable, so you should be able to nudge the landlord to prioritize getting this straightened out.

Yours, Larry

mattmia2 · December 13

there may be a trim piece at the end that opens and there may be a valve there. that looks like it is cast iron baseboard so covering it is your only other option. if you cover the slots with some foil tape or even like gaffer's or packing tape or stuff some towels or something in there it will reduce the output a lot because it relies on drawing air through it to transfer the heat to the air. If it is cast iron baseboard it is all one piece with fins cast on the back, there is no cover that comes off the main section, just some trim at the ends to cover the pipes.

Zairenzu · December 13

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1826566#Comment_1826566

This is what the ends look like, I don't know what to do with these. My landlord is going to contact a plumber to see if we can do anything valve related which would be very helpful.

Also this is what I did for now:

It's some sort of insulation I had lying around.

No control over radiator temperature, it's way too hot, what do I do?

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