The Historic District

Hello all,

Watching the progress on my house, my sister caught the bug and is now restoring her own 1900s farmhouse. She has several original radiators which are not going back into the house. Two are very ornate, Victorian looking, two others are art-deco style, and four are simple unadorned radiators. She has been trying to sell them, very reasonably, but it seems to be a rather limited market. I don't want to see them rusting away in her yard, particularly the ornate ones, so I thought I would ask you guys if you know where to find the buyers for old radiators. Are there people looking for these, or do they all end up in metal scrap? I hope not! SOS!

As long as they are intact (no cracks or pinholes), someone will want them. Definitely don't scrap them, as there will never be any more of them than what there are now. To each his own, but I don't know why anyone would take out radiant heat. Feels much better than forced air and it doesn't dry the air out.

Where is she located?

Thanks for the reply 1918!

I certainly don't want to scrap them either. She's been trying for over a year to find a home for them, but there doesn't seem to be many people interested. Do you have any suggestions where we might find people interested in them? We've tried many antique and restoration shops and public listings, but no luck.

Her house had been abandoned in an orchard for decades, and the heating system fallen apart. She put in geothermal, but the idea was to leave all the radiators inside the house as historic features. Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding and while she was on vacation, the upstairs radiators were removed by crane and put into the yard. She is keeping the downstairs ones, but as heavy as they are, she is not attempting to get the upstairs radiators back in. They have not been tested, as the heating system was gone when the house was purchased, but she doesn't think there are any obvious cracks or holes, though I think we would have to take a closer look to be sure since some are rusty.

She is not far from you, outside Hagerstown MD. I appreciate any advice!

I'd start with listing them on Craigslist for DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. There's got to be someone out there who needs them. They all look to be made by the American Radiator Co. The decorative pattern was known as the Rococo model and the round top models were called Peerless. Both were popular in the 1910s. The square models are a little newer - probably 1930s.

An alternative would be to contact an architectural salvage company and see if they will come and get them. She likely won't get anything for them, but they would get them out of her way and she would know they would be re-used. There may be a tax deduction. She wouldn't get much from a scrapper, anyway. The last time I took a load of scrap iron and steel I think the buying price was about $3 per 100 pounds. Hardly worth the effort.

There's a place outside DC that specializes in the salvage and restoration of radiators called Vintage House Parts. There's also Second Chance in Baltimore.

Wow, thank you so much for the information! She has tried craigslist and a farmer's exchange, but given she can't move them herself, the salvage companies you are suggesting might be a good place to look. She was mostly just hoping to make a little money to put towards the house restoration, but I think she would rather see them used for free than put into scrap (plus I'm the older sister and I'll beat her up if she scraps them )

Thanks again for all the great info!

I offered mine for free on CraigsList. They were in good shape, newly painted, stored indoors (no rust), and went pretty quickly to a couple of guys restoring a house that had some bad ones.

Just as an aside... I totally would have kept them in place and functional, but the cost of expanding the existing steam system into the addition was more expensive then a replace-with-both-heat-and-AC plan. As 1918 says, the heat from those old rads is really nice, though!

Chris

Definitely keep posting them on CL. Eventually someone will get them. That's how I got mine - I took out awful baseboard heat from my house and re-installed radiators I found on CL.

Those short under the window rococo ones are somewhat more rare too. If the system was frozen at any point though, there's chance they are ruined. I got a few rads on CL from a house that suffered system freeze. They looked completely intact but when I filled them with water to pressure test, they had cracks inside few of the sections

I feel bad for all you people with 'scorched air'. I would under no circumstances trade radiator heat for that.

What about a Habitat ReStore?

I don't know if they take radiators, but from what I'm to understand, they have all sorts of building supplies. We have one near here, but we haven't made time to go see what it offers yet.

Tried to send this as pm, but it never left outbox...

Im curious about the shorter height rads - what are their measurements? We need to replace a 13-14" tall x ~50" wide hot water radiator (for under a window seat) and are having a heck of a time finding one.

Old house lady wrote:Tried to send this as pm, but it never left outbox....

PM's stumped me in the beginning... I believe a pm remains in your outbox until the receipent logs into the forum. Then it is sent to their inbox.

Somebody please correct me if I'm mistaken