My First Radiator

A house I owned in Trevorton Pa. was built to be an open gravity system in 1890. When we moved into the this house the heating system baffled me. I had never seen anything like it before. I had seen small gravity flow systems but this thing was a plumbers nightmare until you understood the simplicy of it!!! One thermostat that controlled one pump for basement rooms. You regulated the temp in each room by opening and closing radiator supply valves at the radiator. The first thing I had to do was pull the valves apart, replace the valve stem packing and put some oversized wooden valve wheels on each valve. There were a lot of valves!!! This "house" had been a boarding house for coal miners in it's previous life. It was 7 bedroom with three full baths; one on each floor. 5 bedrooms still had there own hot and cold water sinks in them when we got the house. The place had been neglected over the years and water pipes leaked everywhere!!!!

For the heating system I had a Yellow Flame stoker in the basement. It had 2 inch coming off the top of the boiler and it went across the boiler room to a manifold of sorts that went from the 2 inch down to 3/4 at the end. No valves or scoops or anything. Just a single 3/4 inch pipe coming off the top of the manifold for venting air.

From the manifold there were three 1 inch pipes that went up a pipe chase from the basement to the attic. This chase was open in the basement and in the attic. This pipe chase also supplied combustion air to the boiler room from the attic. When the boiler was pumping out the heat it move a LOT of air to the boiler room from the attic. On each floor 1 inch pipes came off the riser with 3/4 pipe coming off that to feed one radiator in each room. Each rad had it's own feed and return from and to the pipe chase. We had two bedrooms and a full bath on the first . We had two more bedrooms and a full bath on the second floor. On the third floor we had another bedroom. In the basement there were two more bedrooms and another full bath. The basement having been made liveable later in the houses life had a circ pump as thermo doesn't work going down or sideways. You gotta have a pump for that. That was the only area that had a thermostat.

Ever other room in the house was heated by gravity flow. We had a single big honkin check valve on the top of the boiler that you opened or closed if it was winter or summer. Summer operation you closed it so you could make DHW without heating the house and in winter operation you opened it.

The system worked like a champ so long as you were patient. From cold iron to comfortable could take between 4-6 hours. But once it was cooking it was GREAT.

Thanks for that description Larry. I didn't realize you could build a big 3 floor gravity system! That old Yellow Flame must been pushing a lot of coal to heat a place like that. Just think,if that was a hand fired boiler, you wouldn't need any electricity to run it.

Neat!

-Don

StokerDon wrote:Thanks for that description Larry. I didn't realize you could build a big 3 floor gravity system! That old Yellow Flame must been pushing a lot of coal to heat a place like that. Just think,if that was a hand fired boiler, you wouldn't need any electricity to run it.

Neat!

-Don

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Hello Don,

The drawing I described in in Dan Holohans book was from 2 story home and would also aply to a three story home.

From what Reverend Larry is describing his home had no "Honeywell Unique Valves" or a "Honeywell Heat Generator" just standard shut off valves.

The architect for this rooming house knew how to design a building for gravity hot water heat and the same rules would apply for it today with a few tweaks like bug screens/hardware cloth in the attic chase opening to reduce vermin and insect entry into the basement from the attic and vice versa.

StokerDon wrote:Thanks for that description Larry. I didn't realize you could build a big 3 floor gravity system! That old Yellow Flame must been pushing a lot of coal to heat a place like that. Just think,if that was a hand fired boiler, you wouldn't need any electricity to run it.

Neat!

-Don

When we moved during the first winter we burned 10 ton of rice for the year. After working on the place for 4 years I had it down to 6 tons. Lots of seals around windows, caulk by the case, and every time I opened up anything I chocked it full of insulation. I decided that there had to be more air coming in and after investigating I found a grate in the boiler room wall/floor junction. It opened up to a horizontal chase that went to the rear of the house where I found another grate in the sidewalk that I though was just a drain. Nope, It was another fresh air intake for the boiler room that ran under the basement floor!!! I concreted that over, sealed up the grate in the boiler room and closed up the two pipe chases. I put a grill in the boiler room window and made a duct to take the air directly to the combustion fan. Best 2 days work I ever did!!! I gues when coal was a couple dollars a ton and the tenants were coal miners it didn't matter. They had more coal than they could burn.

lzaharis wrote:

rberq wrote:Our house had gravity circulation for many years until we replaced the 1940s boiler with a new one.

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I bet the plumbers told you the expansion tank that had the vent pipe going through the roof was poisonous and had to be removed.

Yes! Right!
My expansion tank was mounted on the wall, just below the ceiling on the second floor. The vent pipe came out the top of the tank then returned to the cellar where it was open to atmosphere. Nothing there to ever ever ever go wrong, but the installers just couldn't seem to grasp that it should work just fine with the new system. Also my wife thought it was ugly, and if you really tried you could bump your head on it coming up the stairs, so I reluctantly let them remove it.

I pressure tested The corner radiator today. It held pressure for 2 hours, no leaks. PASS!
I also posted a video of it.



-Don

That corner unit is my favorite.

Mine to. I can't wait to see it cleaned up and refinished!

-Don

Over the weekend I pressure tested the two 13 section radiators. I also have this nice 2 column flaming torch radiator. I still have to remove one of the nipples, someone cut it off flush.
The two 13 sections tested good. I have a video of it. I just got a new camera and a new laptop. The problem is I still have the same old internet connection, no other options out here. It took over 90 minutes for me to upload a 4 minute video to my Youtube channel yesterday. I have to see if I can make videos with smaller file sizes.

-Don

I GOT ANOTHER ONE!

Well, I went to get two today but, the new siding for the house was laying in the dinning room. This meant that all radiators would need to be transported back into the kitchen, then through the center hallway to the front porch. The dinning room radiator was trapped so I only got the kitchen radiator.
The radiator collection is almost complete, 17 and counting, only 2 that need to be fixed. Sorry, I know I said I shut down the GJ/EFM but it was only for about a week. Then I fired it back up again. It's just sitting on the low limit, waiting for something to heat. -Don

I did some rearranging of the radiator collection today. I put the radiators that need to be worked on toward the front where I can get to them easier.

I posted a video of the current collection. 14 in the garage, 2 in the living room, 1 hooked up to the Gentleman Janitor, 17 total.



I have been thinking about the monster radiator. If I break it down to 8 or 9 sections, I can put it in the house. I also have this crazy idea to use the other sections as wall hanging radiators/towel racks in the bathrooms.

-Don

StokerDon wrote:I also have this crazy idea to use the other sections as wall hanging radiators/towel racks in the bathrooms.

You should have put CRAZY in all capital letters.

MAKE THAT 18 TOTAL!

I went back to the old house this morning and pull the last radiator on the first floor. There is three more upstairs but I am only going to take them if I get them for free. It will be a lot of work banging them apart and carrying each section down and out to the truck. I actually dropped this one. Lucky it fell when we were in the truck bed or it could have been ugly!. Doesn't seem to be damaged, it smashed one of my wooden wadges though. There it is. It needs just about as much clean up as the rest of them. I may actually break down and get someone to media blast these flaming torch rads. If I plug them up none of the blasting media will get inside.

Well there is 15 of them. Now all I need is time to work on them! 80 degrees and sunny down her today. Not exactly radiator weather.

-Don

Ok you inspired me to restore the heating system back to what it was which was hot water radiators. Why they were pulled out in favor of baseboard finned pieces of cheap I don't know. We had one standup rad in the 2nd floor bathroom, one in the first floor kitchen and now there will be one back in the first floor living room. Best part is they will thermosyphen where baseboard finned cheap won't. The one rad in the second floor bath will heat the entire second floor if you keep the bedroom door open and let it marinate for 4 plus hours. These two on the first floor and one on the second floor will heat our little 985 Sq foot home very nicely

This one is a 20 section, 5 tube, 20 inches tall. Clean and ready to hook up and rock and roll.

It had been sitting outside a closed up plumbing store for several months. I got in contact with the owner and they said if I could get it in my truck I could have it.....

Well it was the right price. I got a friend to help me. We stood it up on end and then backed the truck up to it. We put one end over onto the tail gate and then both of us got on the other end and lifted it up and slide it right in just like we knew what we were doing!!!! We repeated that routine to get it out and then kept it on end and walked it into the house. Got it in the living room and put it on two carpet squares and slide it into place. The best part is it fits the living room window perfectly!!!!! The top is just about an inch below the window sill and end to end it fits the window. Just like it was made exactly for it.

Best of all Momma likes it.

Man do I feel it now. We had it on two carpet squares and it still made a polish mark on the hardwood. Good thing we will refinish later down the road!!!! Even though we let gravity do most of the work, I still feel like I fought 3 rounds with a very ugly baboon that KO'd me in the third round

Nice job Larry. That rad under the window really does look like it belongs there. So, you are going to run a gravity system, are you going to power it with the bucket-A-day or do you have something else in mind?

-Don