Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - Removing radiators + their water pipes...

I'm installing CAC and a new heater that will use that ductwork and no longer need the radiator system. What is the best way to remove all of the radiators and piping w/o mess? Is their a way to empty the water from the system before i begin? Any other tips?

OH boy fun fun fun. First turn off all power to unit. Then turn off the water fillto the boiler. Now you can put a hose in the boiler drain **** and open it up. Now go up to the highest bleeder valve you have there and open it up and on down till all of them are open. Next there should be a union in the pipe there by the boiler on the out and on the in take them off and just go from there.If its hard to screw the pipes out take a big hammer and break the cast L .Also get a 4' piece of old pipe that will slide on to the pipe wrench handle you have and pull on this to get more power. If its old the water can stink bad bad, so open the windows;) ;) ;) ED

We did this on our old 20's dormer. It was not easy, nor fun.

Like Ed mentioned, when you drain the whole system you will be treated to nice, smelly (in our case black) water. We let the pipes drain for a day.

Then we took a few days, running around with a SawzAll, cutting the pipes and getting black, sooty sludge all over ourselves.

Then it took four of us and a Bobcat to remove each radiator from the house, and had nice black, sludgey water spilling out in some rooms. One radiator in-particular was heavy enough it over-loaded the bucket on the bobcat...we had to all jump on the back of it to keep it from tipping forward.

Then we had to get a dumpster to get rid of the radiators (we considered keeping them in storage, but their weight and size made that impossible).

Next, we all went to our chiropractor and had him put our backs back where they should be.

In short, it was a big, nasty, yucky job. The amount of space you will recover in each room by removing the radiator and the additional value you will add to the house with the central AC is well-worth-the-effort. Make sure you buy plenty of beer for any friends you bring along on this endevor (good friends, mind you).

William.

After that last post here he told it how it is for sure.You didnt say if this was a cast iron boiler or not. If it is and whats called a wet leg boiler. You will find nuts on the back and front of it . take them of and the boiler will come apart with somr help. Also if the radiator's are cast they will come apart the same way. If not a big big sledge hammer will. That black water is whats called dead water and it is----- thats why it smells;) ED

have fun on the 4 th

thanks for the info... this sounds like it will be as much fun as i imagined.

are the old radiators/boiler worth anything to a scrap metal yard?

i'm sure i'll have some questions when i go to do this...

Call the scrap yard there and ask them if they will take it. Id look in the phone book and see if some one wants the old radiators.Boy about 2 months back some one on a post here wanted them . As they say just KISS this job;) ED

I'm about to do this and had another question.

Are there any type of bleed valves or what not in the actual radiators? Where are they located? I would assume that there would be something on the top floor to open up the system to let air in to push the water out? Are they just located near the boiler?

Right now i just need to remove a few radiators on the 2nd floor to drywall behind them. I'm lucky that i live on a hill and am able to drain the system out the backyard (concrete city yard)

Thanks for all of the info so far.

Ok can do .Turn the power off to the boiler. Then turn the auto water fill off to the boiler. Open boiler bottom drain. Now top radiator if it has a bleeder and it should have one open that. if not you can now open the unions on this radiator and they will suck air and let the water out at the boiler. ;) ;) ED