LOVE Cast Iron!

[BoilerMan]

Some of you may remember a post I made a year ago when I brought 4 of these boat anchors home from the coast of Maine.

I sand blasted and primed these last fall and jugged them in the garage where they sat for the winter

Well this summer I had some paint mixed and I sprayed them on a calm day outside, I am very happy with the result. The WORST part was getting them upstairs, well two good friends and a couple of Tony's Pizzas and all 4 are up. This is the second to largest of the bunch (which are all relitivly small), we estimated this to weigh around 300 pounds, and they hold a suprising amount of water.

All of these are on the second floor as I have in-slab radiant on the first floor. They are piped reverse-return supplied by a single 3/4" zone valve from my home-made pri/sec hybrid setup. Each radiator is supplied by dedicated 1/2" copper branches. There is little flow to the radiators and it takes roughly 4 minutes for the return from this loop to heat up. This radiator CRANKS out the heat, the high mass and high water volume is incredible, as the dead men knew, CI radiators are very forgiving in water flow.

Comments, questions, sarcastic remarks welcome!

TS

 

[maple1]

Awesome.

I ran this possibility past my better half & got a thumbs down - can't figure the big aversion. I'll be trying again.

Any idea what kind of delta-T they're giving?

 

[heaterman]

Good call on the reverse return. It virtually guarantees even flow and the same water temp to each radiator.
What static pressure did you need to get water moved up to the second floor and what did you use for air vents?

 

[NHFarmer]

I'm starting my 5th year heating with CI rads. They are like little woodstoves in every room, they also make great towel warmers.

 

[salecker]

I'm looking forward to getting mine hooked up,we have the ones for the top floor all ready,flushed pressure tested and painted.The lines are in,just need to install some stays to secure them too.I ran 1/2' pex for each set.We have two sets of two upstairs,they are 10 row.Main floor we will start with 2 14 row in the main area,a 8 row in the mud room with 10 row in the hall.A 10 row in a bedroom with a 6 in the bath.
I was going to go with some in the basement,but i may go with a heat exchanger and fan to keep air movement in the basement.
So i will probably end up with some for sale,or trade
Thomas

 

[iceguy4]

BoilerMan Minister of Fire Joined: Apr 16, 2012 Messages: 1,228 Loc: Northern Maine New Some of you may remember a post I made a year ago when I brought 4 of these boat anchors home from the coast of Maine. I sand blasted and primed these last fall

I powder coated mine!!
surprised it took me so long to discover.. I LOVE mine

 

[BoilerMan]

Any idea what kind of delta-T they're giving?

Around 10F at an estimated 1.5 GPM

So i will probably end up with some for sale,or trade

This is exactly how I acquired these, the guy had built a house and these were left over, along with 10+ HUGE fancy ones.

Good call on the reverse return.
What static pressure did you need to get water moved up to the second floor and what did you use for air vents?

My system is set for 1bar (15psi) static this radiator is only 7' top of boiler to top of rad.
I used DURST keyed nickel plated brass vents, for hopefully childproofness..........
The farthest radiator and the closest are around 25' apart, the return is not complete in the pica and just has a 3/4" skarkbite cap on it till I get more flooring down so I can install the other radiators (something about a horse and a cart in the correct order ya know )

ICEGUY4,
I painted them with Nason Automotive primer in a rattle can, and had the paint custom mixed at CARQUEST in rattle cans as well, very happy with the results.

TS

 

[iceguy4]

very happy with the results

I'll bet they are pretty. I painted some of mine too. BUT I'm most pleased with the ones I paid to be powder coated. all the casting bumps are gone. shiny smooth like a new ceramic tub

 

[BoilerMan]

Interesting, I never thought of that........... If you don't mind how much was it to powder coat a radiator. After blasting them out in the yard there is plenty of roughness from the casting sand. All the years of lead paint coats hid that pretty well.

TS

 

[infinitymike]

Very nice, I was thinking about cast iron baseboard.
I figure I would just cut out the old stuff and plumb in the cast.
What exactly is reverse return and would I need that?

 

[BoilerMan]

Reverse return is for balancing the flows through several radiators connected to the same zone. You would not need it with CI baseboard, those are generally connected in series as your current fin-tube BB usually is piped.

I did some work last winter is a house that had CI BB, BaseRay I think was the brand, we sanded them with a DA primed and sprayed with and automotive HVLP gun, came out as smooth as a car ready for WAX!


TS

 

[infinitymike]

What would be the recommended water temp to run through CI baseboard?

 

[R Mannino]

The water just needs to be hot enough to heat the space, hot on cold days, warm on not so cold days.
ODR varies the water temp based on outdoor temperature.

 

[iceguy4]

Interesting, I never thought of that........... If you don't mind how much was it to powder coat a radiator. After blasting them out in the yard there is plenty of roughness from the casting sand. All the years of lead paint coats hid that pretty well.

TS

5 radiators blasted (warrantee) and painted $900