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How many of you are lucky to have either steam or circulating hot water?

The ONE thing that I would do if I won the lottery is to re-fit my 1970's house with steam heat. I grew up with it. HOW I MISS IT!!! I have bemoaned the fact that I don't have it ever since I left home 40 + years ago.
I don't know why people replace it with gravity or forced air furnaces.

When we bought our previous home, we were thrilled to find rads! Once we learned the secrets of the relief valves, we had quiet, clean consistent heat...and great plate warmers! Miss them.

Had them in Massachusetts. I kept a pan of water on one of the rads when needed in mid-winter. You could dry mittens and stuff from when the kids came in from playing out in the snow.

I would rather have my Florida house and all that came with it, not nostalgic about it. Actually costs me less now to A/C and heat my home in Fl than it EVER did in Massachusetts many years ago!

In our 1920's house, the radiators had a little cup at the bottom where one could put water to add humidity.

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I kept a pan of water on one of the rads when needed in mid-winter.

I do this too Mary Ruth but it is usually one of my china bowls.

Lu, with the cost of oil that steam heat (which we do have) is pretty expensive! $700 for my last fill!

LOS, do you think that a forced air furnace would be cheaper than the steam? My speculation is that the cost would be the same.

Just guessing but I'm thinking that the high cost of your winter heat is due to
1) your very cold winters
2) using heating oil instead of natural gas

I love steam heat too. It's by far the best for instantly heating your house.

Ours was oil generated too and that cost a fortune but as you say Lu, it probably would have been just as much if it was forced air.

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Just guessing but I'm thinking that the high cost of your winter heat is due to
1) your very cold winters
2) using heating oil instead of natural gas

Heating oil is by far the most common form of heat in Maine. Converting to anything else, even a new furnace to burn oil would be prohibitive in cost to us as we have asbestos covered furnace and pipes in our basement. so a new furnace would be about 25K before we were done and another reason to not do that is that we have a cellar full of belongings which would all have to be moved somewhere else. We are packed to the gills!

If I had my pick it would be radiant floor heat. We have forced hot air now and I don't like it at all. It makes everything dusty and dries out my sinuses. My last home had baseboard forced hot water and it was better than those old radiators!

I grew up with forced hot air, powered by an oil furnace, and I remember my mother (who had steam heat in her Brooklyn home) complaining about how dry forced hot air made her skin. We alsways had vaporizers or humidifiers in our bedrooms during the winter.

For several years in the 70s when we lived in a pre-war NYC apartment building we had rads with steam heat. However, they made a lot of noise and dribbled out scalding hot water, plus the the pipes often knocked. Not good.

I like my gas-powered hot air/cooling set-up in my current home; it is quiet and clean. We change the filters faithfully each month. Being in Texas, I rarely put on the heat during the winter, which is wonderful for my sinuses!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: aychihuahua,

OK, I have to admit that the first thing that came to my mind with the title of your post was this band http://lostandsound.wordpress....release-and-reunion/

Then I realized that wasn't quite what you meant...I don't have any experience with it, having grown up in Texas, but when my DD lived in an old Brooklyn apt., it was exactly what aychi described:

"However, they made a lot of noise and dribbled out scalding hot water, plus the the pipes often knocked."

and it freaked me out, not having any experience with it!

It seems like I'm always learning something, such as the different types of heating in different parts of the country, which is a good thing.

I'm wondering if the age and condition of the heating system had anything to do with the dripping water, hissing steam and groaning pipes.
The house where I grew up was built in the 20's and had none of these problems.

When I first set up housekeeping in a house built in the late 40's, it had a gravity gas furnace.
It was YEARS before I figured out why the silver tarnished so quickly, the furniture got so dusty rapidly and I got cobwebs near the ceiling.

In this house, I have a NEW forced air furnace with all the bells, whistles and filtering systems. I don't get cobwebs near the ceiling but I still have the problem of my silver tarnishing quickly and dust accumulating. As I was reading AYCH's message, when she referred to her CLEAN furnace system, I thought she must has electric heat. Then I re-read and saw that she, too, has gas.

So my question to AYCH........what kind of gas furnace and filtering system do you have that is so CLEAN????

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Originally posted by Love, Lu:
I'm wondering if the age and condition of the heating system had anything to do with the dripping water, hissing steam and groaning pipes.
The house where I grew up was built in the 20's and had none of these problems.

So my question to AYCH........what kind of gas furnace and filtering system do you have that is so CLEAN????

Answer #1: It's a matter of maintenance (or, most likely in my case, a matter of deferred maintenance by the landlord) that leads to sputtering radiators. The Brooklyn building I lived in was built c. 1905.

Answer #2. Beats me. I know the system was installed in 1998 when the house was built. We have it professionally serviced/cleaned twice a year, and as I stated before, we are diligent about replacing the filters every month. Maybe that's it??

This message has been edited. Last edited by: aychihuahua,

Maybe you're just a better housekeeper than I am:::::laughing::::::::

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For several years in the 70s when we lived in a pre-war NYC apartment building we had rads with steam heat.

On one of our cruises a guest speaker was the man who wrote "steam Heat" (Pajama Game?) anyway he said that he was struggling to come up with a song and he decided to stay in the bathroom till inspiration hit. It did when the radiator started clanking and hissing!

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Originally posted by Love, Lu:
Maybe you're just a better housekeeper than I am:::::laughing::::::::

Not hardly. I like to blame the dry and dusty Texas breezes for that stuff that settles on the furniture and every available surface in my home.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: aychihuahua,

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Originally posted by lady of shallot:

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For several years in the 70s when we lived in a pre-war NYC apartment building we had rads with steam heat.

On one of our cruises a guest speaker was the man who wrote "steam Heat" (Pajama Game?) anyway he said that he was struggling to come up with a song and he decided to stay in the bathroom till inspiration hit. It did when the radiator started clanking and hissing!

Great story, Emily. For all of you who may have never seen Pyjama Game, here is the original "Steam Heat" scene, from 1957. Listen carefully! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...Q2R8&feature=related