Using a hot-water radiator for one-pipe steam

mattmich · October 26

Learned Friends:

A dozen years ago, I removed a hugely oversized radiator from an old sun porch — ift that's what you call a room on the North side of the house, with windows on three sides. Maybe it was a room to sleep in in the summer. Anyway, it's my office now, insulated and with good Andersen windows.

Anyway, the old rad was about 300 lbs and I was not interested in reusing it. It also had an EDR of 50, for a room 8 x 14 feet.

On FB Marketplace, I found this old thing for an attractive price, so I bought it. Its ERD is about 20 square feet, which is plenty. Looked lighter than its 160 lbs but I got it home.

The seller is a nice guy but when he verified the inner diameter of the condensate fitting for me at 1-1/4", he must have gotten confused. It's one inch ID, and my new Legend radiator angle valve is 1-1/4.

I'm pretty sure none of the old iron fittings will move with household-type motivation.

My guess is that I'll have to take out the brass one-incher and replace it with some kind of adaptor piece. Worst calse, I'll have to find a way to get the steel reducer out and replace it. That will be work, and likely require a blow torch to heat everything up.

Before I go to all that trouble, does anyone have a better idea? A steel adapter could be made to fit easily enough. Obviously, there'd be condensate trapped, but I don't think that'll be a big problem.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
cheers -matt

Jamie Hall · October 26

Well,,. if you don't have the inlet valve which was matched to that spud that's in there, you have to replace the spud anyway and replace it with the spud which came with your new valve.

Sometimes spuds come out easily. Some times (like most of the time) not so much.

What happened to the inlet valve which wat mated to the radiator?

ethicalpaul · October 26

I'm not sure what you are asking here, but 1" is big enough for this radiator.

It doesn't hurt to try to remove the iron reducer if what you are saying is that your existing feed line is 1-1/4"

And if you can get a 1" valve to attach to it, it sure can't hurt to try to mate it to the existing 1" brass "spud" that is in the radiator. As Jamie said, it may not mate, but I think he's overstating to say "it won't mate"

mattmich · October 27

Rather than use a lot of words, let me simply ask:

Okay to connect like this?

ethicalpaul · October 27

People might say that the water trapped by the bushing will be a problem, but I don't think it will. I think it will work but if it were mine I'd try like heck to get that bushing out just based on principle

Jamie Hall · October 27

Agreed. Kind of a kludge, but it will work OK.

guzzinerd · October 28

A carefully used sawzall does the trick for me when removing old fittings like that.

EBEBRATT-Ed · October 28

1" is good for an EDR of 25 so at 20 your not pushing it. Could you use a 1" valve and reduce the riser to go into the valve? A reducer on a riser is less of a problem.

But. if you lay the rad down and put a 2-footer on it with a cheater it will give up. If not Sawzall it out.

The way you have it is probably fine.

Now that I changed my mind 3 times I am out LOL

mattmich · October 28

I was hoping for someone to say, a mismatch like this is common, here's what you buy.

As near as I can tell, there is no angle valve that goes from a 1-1/4 riser to a 1-inch spud. Which I would have thought would be common. And of course I could neck down the riser, but then I'm a few inches higher than I want to be, so that's not an attractive option. I had the wall open a dozen years ago, but I wisely left the pipes and the asbestos insulation beaucoup the heck alone.

I'm going to get out the 3-foot pipe wrench and see if I can get the bushing out, but I draw the line at Sawzall/blowtorch. Just not that big a deal for part-time duty. I will swap out the nipple for a close nipple to minimize the ugly. The real attraction is if I can get ALL the bushings out i won't have to repaint the silly thing. As it sits, I'll have to use the ugly side forward, so that means painting and maybe a trip to the sandblaster.

BTW this is loooong riser, 10 ft along the basement ceiling + ten feet to the second floor, so it has 12 sq ft of EDR all its own. Insulated, of course. I will only turn it on when I really need it; that room hasn't had a radiator in years and it hasn't been a problem.

ethicalpaul · October 28

so it has 12 sq ft of EDR all its own. Insulated, of course.

Then it doesn't have 12 sq ft of EDR, except for a couple minutes when starting from cold

As near as I can tell, there is no angle valve that goes from a 1-1/4 riser to a 1-inch spud.

But you don't need this. Your radiator I believe has a 1-1/2" port into which you could easily install a 1-1/2 to 1-1/4 bushing. Everyone else's radiator does also so no one really needs a 1-1/4 riser to a 1" spud.

leonz · October 28

Rent a 4 or 5 foot pipe wrench and 4 pound hammer or buy a 5 foot length of pipe to use on the pipe wrench to get the bushing out of there. If you have a wagner paint melting gun use it for 10 minutes on the cast iron around the bushing and have someone lean against the radiator to hold it in place or better yet and safer lay it on a 6 by 6 or 8 by 8 to use the floor as a back stop to remove the bushing if you do not feel up to using a sawzall to cut it in two or three places.

EBEBRATT-Ed · October 28

A 2' wrench or even an 18" from harbor Freight is cheap and with a cheater pipe it will do anything a 4' will do an a lot easier to handle.

mattmia2 · October 28

@Nick_Castrads any chance you use a common size union on your radiator valves such that you could put a 1" spud on a 1.25" valve?

Nick_Castrads · October 28

@mattmia2 thanks for the mention but unfortunately not. I have long thought it'd be useful though - QED this post.

@mattmich in my experience pretty much any bushing will come out with a tight-fitting socket and a 3/4" impact gun. The impact seems to be key.

mattmich · November 3

Just a quick update. Spurred on by Paul and others, I got out the three-foot wrench and a mallet, and with the appropriate encouragement, two of the bushings came out. I would have loved to remove a third, which has probably been in this radiator since the house it came from was built in 1900, but no dice. All I did was create marks on the 1-1/4 square wrench flats.

Which means I can use the radiator, no problem, and install a vent on the opposite corner of where the steam comes in, BUT I can't use the pretty side and instead have to turn it 180 degrees, which means painting. This being in the upstairs office, which nobody uses but me, I'm not inclined to make much of art project of it. Does anyone have experience with simple spray paint? I've used regular "up to 180 F" paint and regretted it, because it outgassed and smoked for quite a bit before settling down. I'm not doing that again.

Rustoleum high-heat paint, mostly for outdoor grills, is readily available. I've read some of the threads here, and reviews are mixed. Anyone have recent experience with that stuff?

If I knew for sure the radiator is tight, I'd take it to a local powdercoat business, but I'd hate to go to the trouble and expense and then find it leaking.

Grallert · November 3

It looks like it was a water radiator in one of it's past lives, judging by the air vent. If that's the case I would not be at all hesitant to have it blasted or dipped. It's very unlikely at will leak as it most likely held water pressure at 12 psi and your one pipe system will be far lower than that withy very little water.

Also when it comes time to paint it just use any good quality wall paint and avoid the off gassing you'll get with rustolium

ethicalpaul · November 3

You don't need high heat paint. 212 is not high heat, it's basically your dashboard in the summer.

Just brush on a couple coats of nice acrylic after wire brushing off any chunks of old paint or rust. Rust might peek through eventually so you might consider some of those rust conversion products out there, or maybe there are paints that contain similar rust blocking stuff in them.

But I would definitely stay away from high heat or oil based stuff. Other people here will recommend high-heat paint and I'm not here to belittle them but that stuff's not for me.

mattmia2 · November 3

you can test it with air pressure. you can also get all sorts of colors of high temp engine paints although many water based paints will likely have less of an odor. There are some brush on paints that self level very well and others that don't level at all. The ones that level well look very similar to paint that was sprayed.

RTW · November 3

My thought is to get a quote from an experienced plumber with pipe fitting experience, right tools, knowledge to do this job vs. DIY costs of renting tools, time & labor and lack of experience, due the math, just sayin

Regards,

RTW

RTW · November 3

P.S. BTW the style of your radiator is "princess" which I have in my home

mattmia2 · November 3

BTW if you really want to get the plug out you can cut most of the middle of it out with a hole saw, cut some notches almost to the threads with a hacksaw and knock out the piece in between with a small chisel.

ethicalpaul · November 3

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1870605#Comment_1870605

Keep it very low however. Testing a pressure vessel with air isn't a good idea I have heard!

mattmia2 · November 3

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1870614#Comment_1870614

the best way would be to fill it with water then use air to bring it up to pressure but the risk would be minimal with ci bringing it up to 20 psig or 30 psig. It isn't recommended with plastic because plastic tends to shatter.

mattmich · November 18

I realized I'm overdue for an update.
After inquiring about sandblasting & powdercoating, I decided to attach the radiator and make sure everything was shipshape before I increase my "investment" in this thing ten-fold. This picture is from the initial installation, and the clever closure on the former hot-water inlet served to keep steam from escaping.

A 1" hole makes quite the vent.

Any room is improved with a Persian Sarough even if it's tiny .

After the successful initial test with zero leaks — that's what the paper was supposed to show — I went to Home Depot to LEGO together fittings for the vent. I took an ancient vent with me so I could make sure.

It's the opposite of elegant but it works. By now of course it's all screwed together properly and much shorter — and wears a Maidomist #5 on the end, not this ancient thing. With the fairly large vent it fills quickly.

The korrekt thing would be to drill & tap the hole that is sort of pre-cast into the end sections at mid-height, but I wasn't feeling the level of effort and mess. This way, only about 2/3 of the radiator actually gets hot, which is right for this small room at 8 x 14 ft.

It sure beats no heat at all.
Next I'll follow Paul's advice and brush-paint it with acrylic paint — if I get another day in the 50s where I could open the windows for the initial outgassing.

cheers -matt

mattmich · November 18

And BTW I did a high-tech pressure test first. It's always good to have some bicycle inner tubes lying around.

Using a hot-water radiator for one-pipe steam

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