Cast iron heating radiators

Recommendation points

• Cast iron radiators – history
• Pros and cons of cast iron radiators
• Beautiful cast iron heating radiator

In this Article: A History of Cast Iron Radiators positive and negative characteristics of cast iron heating radiators; why the disadvantages of cast iron for the most part are their advantages; century is not a period or how cast iron batteries successfully compete with bimetallic and aluminum ones; wonderful radiators in retro style.

Cold comes to our homes with the onset of autumn and remains in them until late spring. To combat the cold, people used animal skins and open flames of bonfires, stoves and branched hot air supply systems, but they could not create full-fledged heating of the dwelling. The solution to the problem of winter cold was found with the invention of water heating and radiators, the best of which were made of cast iron. Let’s see if cast iron heating radiators are really outdated today, as the manufacturers of aluminum and bimetallic heating devices claim.

Cast iron radiators – history

Single water heating systems, in which hot water was circulated, heated in boilers, existed more than two thousand years ago in ancient Rome – one of such systems was discovered by archaeologists during excavations of the city of Ephesus. After one and a half thousand years, water heating was re-invented in Europe, at the end of the 17th century, greenhouses and greenhouses were heated with it..

Two centuries ago, heating systems, in which water flowing through pipes served as a heat carrier, were perceived by contemporaries to a greater extent negatively – the efficiency of water heating in the absence of radiators was rather low. They used coils made of pipes, similar to the design of heated towel rails, which are still installed in bathrooms to this day..

The first full-fledged heating radiator in 1857 was invented by Franz Karlovich San Galli, casting it from cast iron after a series of unsuccessful experiments that took two years. Franz San Galli, at the age of 19, moved from Poland to Russia and settled in St. Petersburg, where he was soon lucky enough to find a job at the engineering plant of Scottish engineer Charles Byrd. Having studied the intricacies of iron casting, Franz decides to acquire his own workshop, which he opens in 1853 on Ligovsky Prospect. The workshop had a shop that sold metal beds, washbasins and fireplaces, as well as cast iron and bronze water pipes produced in the San Galli workshop.

Franz Karlovich San Galli at work in his factory office

However, the business of the enterprising engineer did not go, his business was unprofitable. Franz Karlovich is looking for a way out of a difficult financial situation, he devotes all his energy and ability to develop improvements in the field of hot water heating systems. And four years after starting his own business, he created the first heating radiator made of cast iron, which he called Heizkorper (translated into Russian – hot box). San Galli’s invention was not like modern cast-iron radiators – it was a large-diameter pipe with disc-shaped projections into which hot water entered. In addition to the original design, similar to modern heating radiators – by the way, this name was also invented by Franz Karlovich – his “hot boxes” were not part of the pipes of the heating system, i.e. connected to them at the installation sites. The inventor of the San Galli heating batteries did not keep the technology of their manufacture secret and, on the contrary, openly shared information with industrialists in Europe and the USA.

Heating battery in palace greenhouses of Tsarskoye Selo

An interesting fact: the cast-iron radiators RETRO, produced at the Franz Karlovich San Galli factory at the beginning of the 20th century and having undergone several restorations, now continue to work properly, heating the halls of the Imperial Court Chapel, located in St. Petersburg.

Pros and cons of cast iron radiators

The massive use of heating radiators made of cast iron has been going on for over 100 years. At first glance, cast iron batteries should have become obsolete long ago, but for some reason this does not happen. Let’s consider in detail their characteristics in order to understand the reasons for the constant popularity..

Coolant quality. The heating of water, which plays the role of a coolant in central heating systems, is carried out at a CHP, from where hot water is directed to the heated objects along many kilometers of heating mains and through pipes embedded in them it enters houses. Throughout the entire route of movement, the quality of the coolant only deteriorates, not only hot water is supplied to the heating devices, but a chemically aggressive medium that actively corrodes these devices from the inside. On cast-iron heating radiators, the characteristics of the coolant, as well as the seasonal drainage of water from the system, do not act in any way – they are not subject to corrosion, while all other types of heating batteries will gradually rust from the inside, creating unexpected “surprises” for homeowners at the beginning of the heating seasons.

The ability to retain heat – inertia. Compared to batteries made of other metals, cast iron ones take longer to heat up, while having the ability to give off heat after turning off the heating boiler for some time. All other types of heating radiators will cool down in a matter of minutes after the circulation of the hot coolant stops.

Long service life. With periodic maintenance, which consists in flushing cast iron radiators and, possibly, replacing gaskets between sections, they will last at least 50 years.

Among the disadvantages of cast iron radiators are most often called outdated technology, thermal inertia, slow heating of the room, significant requirements for the volume of the coolant, significant weight, unattractive appearance.

With regard to “outdated technology” – despite the changes in the methods of heating the coolant over the last century, its characteristics have not improved, but only worsened. And since the last half a century, cast-iron radiators have served us quite well, it would be wrong to accuse them of “obsolescence”. The only thing in which cast iron batteries are possibly outdated is the impossibility of installing them in heating systems with automatic thermostats, because it will not be possible to quickly cool cast iron. However, in the very cold Russian winters, households are more interested in an increase in the temperature in the premises, and not at all in its lowering..

Thermal inertia of cast iron batteries is really inherent, but why is it called a disadvantage? In houses with bimetallic or steel heating radiators, the temperature in the rooms will drop significantly as soon as the temperature of the coolant drops, and cast iron will continue to heat further, which will give households more time to solve the problem with the coolant.

Slow room heating. The heat transfer of one section of a cast-iron radiator is approximately 110 W, and the heat transfer of a section of aluminum and bimetallic radiators with the same size and less coolant consumption is at least one and a half times greater. Everything is correct, however, the difference in the methods of heating the premises is not taken into account – convection-air for aluminum and bimetallic radiators, radiation for cast-iron and steel heating batteries. The fact is that aluminum and bimetallic radiators do not have direct contact with the surface – the coolant circulates inside them, and outside they are covered with a casing of aluminum plates that heat up rather weakly. Meanwhile, the radiant heat radiation heats up not the air much better, but objects and walls inside the heated room, turning them into a kind of secondary heat emitters. Accordingly, the slow heating of the room, typical of cast iron radiators, is more efficient than the fast air-convection heating from its competitors in an aluminum casing..

Requirements for a significant amount of coolant.Indeed, filling one section of a cast-iron battery requires about 0.9 liters of water, and the capacity of an aluminum radiator section is about 0.4 liters. However, it should be borne in mind that the dimensions of aluminum heating radiators are much smaller than cast iron – the difference in the consumed volume of the coolant is explained by this.

Considerable weight of cast iron radiators. One section of such a radiator weighs about 5-6 kg when empty, i.e. the six-section battery will already weigh 30-36 kg. For the homeowner, the significant weight of cast iron batteries does not matter, because it is not for him to carry and install them – most of all, heavy cast iron is not attractive to plumbing installers.

Beautiful cast iron heating radiator

Cast-iron batteries, which are well known to each of us since Soviet times, have one, in no way fixable, drawback – they look awful and cannot be argued with. During major repairs, accompanied by the design of apartments and houses, their owners tried in every possible way to hide the cast-iron squalor in niches behind lattice screens that reduced the efficiency of radiant heating, because they blocked it. The appearance on the domestic market of imported aluminum and bimetallic radiators made a splash – they looked just amazing and completely new! And the homeowners rushed to hastily change their ugly heating radiators …

What are the reasons for the unattractive appearance of domestic cast-iron radiators? The main task facing the Soviet manufacturers of heating batteries was very simple – to create a cheap and efficient heating device, without any frills. Actually, this is how the well-known cast-iron heating devices appeared, capable of introducing dissonance into the design of any room. But do all models of cast iron radiators look equally scary?

More than a century ago, the Russian industrialist and inventor of cast iron heating devices Franz Karlovich San Galli created several types of radiators and some of them looked like a true masterpiece – they were not just beautiful, they were amazing! And if modern aluminum radiators are suitable only for a few design styles close to Art Nouveau, then Retro style heating radiators will adorn rooms decorated in a classic style.

Artistic cast iron allows you to form a wonderful ornament on the surfaces of heating devices, kept in a certain tone – it can be baroque, retro, modern (art nouveau), classic, oriental pattern in Japanese and Chinese styles. There is definitely no need to hide such beauty behind the screens of screens, and in terms of operational characteristics, as we found out earlier, cast-iron radiators are quite capable of bypassing modern heating devices.

The cost of cast iron radiators, sustained in a certain style, ornamented and painted with high-quality paints, which is quite natural, is not cheap – a six-section unit will cost about 20,000 rubles. On the Russian market there are stylized cast-iron radiators with a convex cast ornament made in Germany, France, England, Turkey and China, there are no domestic manufacturers.

By the way, professional painting and decoration of heating radiators in the RETRO style will help to increase the artistic value of ordinary cast-iron radiators..

Perhaps someday a manufacturer will appear in Russia who will master the technique of decorative cast-iron casting and will be able to supply heating radiators to the domestic market that do not differ in terms of aesthetics and functionality from their Western counterparts …