It's gotta get worse before it can get better..

Hey friends! You still out there?  I bet you wondered where I have been.  Time goes so fast and now it is already winter in Minnesota.  The snow is falling outside and we are having a nice warm day of 19 degrees.  This year has passed by so quickly and I have been working so incredibly much.  Sadly that work hasn't really been on the house, but has been at my job of tour guiding.  I spent most of the summer and fall between Alaska, Croatia and Israel/ Jordan and after an insane season I am back home to my humble project and ready to just stay put and get done what I have started out doing so many years ago.  Since in the warm weather I am home back and fourth so much I don't get a lot of time to work outside.  The amount of effort to keep up the gardens, lawn and other little tasks outside I didn't work much on the exterior.  I did get these fabulous cast iron urns that welcome visitors to this grand old lady.

 

 

 

So with me being safely stuck inside during the cold weather what should I do?  Seems logical to move a radiator right?  Oh what joy that was! I wish you could hear the sarcasm in my voice as I say this.  I want to finish the foyer, but I have wanted for a long time to not only move, but to put in a period correct radiator in the master bedroom.  At some point the original radiator to the master bedroom was removed and this long and simple radiator was placed in the room.  It was also positioned in a not so great spot.  It would have made sense to center it on the wall right?  No they placed in front of the window.  I know why they did this but it doesn't make sense anymore.  Also on this wall in between the two windows when I was renovating the room I discovered an old gas jet for  wall lights in between the windows.  I didn't pay any attention to it at the time and I decided not to put a wall light back in that location when I renovated the room.  Fast forward 6 years later I believe I figured out why there was a paid or gas jets in the wall between the windows.  Not only for simply light but to place a dresser in between the two windows and the jets would light the dresser mirror.  Ah ha! I have an antique dresser that will fit perfectly here once I remove this old radiator and I intend to put wall sconces back in the wall, but for now I need to plumb in the new radiator.  Once I have the new radiator in I will move this plain radiator into the basement to keep it a bit warmer down there.  Getting it from the 2nd floor to the basement will be a different story but I hope to just pay some movers to put it down there and I can wash my hands of that awful task.

I set about trying to find not only a size and period correct radiator for the room but a matching radiator to my others ones.  After asking around and finding out more I learned my radiators are of the American Standard Rococo style, which were surprisingly easy to find.  Now I just needed to find one of the correct size. With a lot of searching and waiting, I had about given up to find one that would fit perfectly.  I went into my salvage yard in November and was wondering around and my jaw dropped.  An American Standard Radiator the exact right size and only ONE COAT OF PAINT!! I could actually see all the details! Not only was it only one coat of paint but it was a really pretty gold which in the end is the color I want the radiators to be when I'm finished.  I could not believe my luck!

 

So I have my beautiful new radiator and I set up delivery as there was no way I was going to even attempt to move an 10 section radiator up to the 2nd floor.  3 guys showed up and brought it up there with some cuss words but it was well worth the delivery charge.  Little did I know that that would be the easy part.  I figured it would be a bit challenging to put this radiator in, but I figured I could do it in a day with the correct prep work.  Did I mention also that this radiator goes about the parlor and so I needed to put it in without touching the ceiling in the parlor?  So I had to open some of the ceiling in the foyer, fish the pipes through the parlor ceiling and then get them up through the floor.  So I began opening the ceiling in the foyer and found the correct joists the pipes needed to run through.  I did have to cut open part of the floor upstairs to be able to pipe in the radiator up there.  Then bring it all the way to the basement and tie it in to the old pipes, meaning I had to break the union on some pipes that had been together for over 100 years.  So after a LOT of grunt work and uneasy running the pipes I got them back down to where I needed to tie it into the old system, meaning it was going to be time to turn off the heat, drain the system and cut the old pipes and break the old unions.  Oh and of course running the pipes meant they had to fit in between the joists that were not the nice wide ones, no they had to run in the joists that are barely 10"!  I probably didn't mention that I had never done this before either, but I figured it's just pipes that screw together and as long as one uses sealer and tape on the threads I could do it.  So it took me a few days to get it down to the basement and cut the old pipes.  There was no going back now.  Breaking the old unions myself was not an easy task but after a few hours and grunting, blow torch and a giant wrench I broke out the old pipes with success.  I tied in the new pipes and waited after many hours of work and worry I turned the system back on started filling it.

 

 

I get it all turned on and the water starts heating and I start hearing drip, drip, drip.  An elbow in the ceiling had a pinpoint drip.  FUUUUU*********K!!!!!  It was about 2am at this point and I was so exhausted and filthy I put a bucket under it and decided to deal with it another day.  Well that turned into 4 days later as I had some family from out of town coming to visit and see my mess.  After they left it was time to tackle fixing the leak.  Now one thing with these pipes is that it is in such a narrow space I can't easily get a wrench up there to tighten the pipes and also you may know that when you tighten one end it looses the other end.  There is no easy way to address this.  So I again had to drain the system, cut out the pipes I had just put in and this time make sure they were really, really tight.  I'll save you the words I had for that and the mess I had when I realized that I didn't drain the system completely when I cut the pipes out.  Oh I thought I did and I removed a section and all of a sudden I hear this gurgling and a giant gush of water that was left in the radiator came flowing down onto the floor.  I used every towel I had caught some of it with a bucket.  It didn't cause any damage, just a giant mess.  So I'm about 1.5 weeks into the project and really, really done with it at this point.  I put in new pipes with a union so that I didn't have to redo the whole lower run.  I got everything hooked back up and tightened everything as much as I could and turned the system on again and started filling it with water.  I hear it filling with  water and everything sounds good, but as the pressure builds I hear a drip, drip, drip at the new union I had just put it.  It apparently wasn't tight enough and there was no way to get any wrench in there.  I tried everything.  Resigned to live with the fact I would just have a cup collecting water in my foyer for the rest of my life I went to the home improvement store to see if there were any special wrenches that could help me tighten a union in basically zero space.  I stumbled upon a chain wrench which I had never heard of but bought it and figured I had nothing to lose.  With utter amazement the chain wrench worked and the drip disappeared!

I am in love with this tool.

 

I topped off the system and everything began working like a charm.  I am utterly exhausted by this point and just want to give up, but I succeeded in getting the new radiator in, hooked up and working and it fits and looks great in it's new location.

 

 

Now mind you I still have 2 more radiators to move on the 1st floor but this should hopefully be much easier as I have the whole basement ceiling to run them and you know what?  I'll deal with them at that point.  Sadly that point will be within the next month or so, but at least I can now close up the open drywall and do the trim in the foyer and begin that process. 

 

For now I need a little time to relax and work on easier projects put up some holiday lights and breath a sigh of relief that I can now indeed say I know how to move and plumb in a new radiator myself.

 

 

Happy holidays everyone and we will talk soon!  When I next write it should be more fun and working on the decoration to finish the foyer.  Can't wait to show you what I have planed for it!