Edwin Pawlowski wrote:

wrote in message
ups.com...
Can anyone tell me how big and messy of a job this is? I'm renting in
a brownstone (approx. 100 years old) and the landlord didn't maintain
the boiler unit, so it rusted out. He is replacing all the radiators
in each unit with baseboard heat, and has just given me 3 days notice
until the work begins.

Boilers rust out in 100 year old buildings no matter how well they are
maintained. What do you think he should have done differently?

As for changing to baseboard, there are many considerations. It will make
some mess but it also depends on what he is putting in. Taking out the old
units is easy enough.

There is cast iron and there is tube and fin styles of baseboard. Step one
is to determine what size radiators you have and what is the correct
equivalent size of replacement baseboard is needed. Did he do that?

The old pipes, if exposed, are easily removed. Cut them to smaller sections
and just carry them out to the scrap truck. The new baseboard has to be
piped a bit different as the inlet is on one end, the outlet on the other.
It may go in a loop around the house on each floor and holes in the floor
will probably be concealed by the housing. Any dust and dirt should be
concentrated in a few areas.

Overall, it is not all that messy unless other problems come up. You'll
want to paint or paper where the old radiator was.

Personally, I'd take a big old radiator over baseboard heat any day. My
preference is steam heat. When I was in Italy a week ago, the villa we
rented had just that setup. I like to heat up the bread on the radiator as
it was easier than lighting the oven. I was also paying $5.20 a gallon for
heating oil so we kept it a bit lower than we do at home.
--
Ed
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/

In all probability, the old full building boiler and heat included in
the rent are going to go out the proverbial window in favor of cheap
electric baseboard heat which will of course show up on each tenants
individual electric bill, with no reduction in the rent to compensate
for this. Likely the building is also poorly insulated and given today's
electric rates, the tenants will be in for quite a shock even if the
rent were to be reduced to compensate for heat no longer being included.