Look for the foil encased bubble wrap. Reflectix is the name. Wrap
around your pipes and yu will notice the difference. Even at fullon
steam you can still hold the reflectix covered pipe as it reflects 90
% of heat. There is foil tape made for high heat too. I recommend
this 1000%

On Nov 7, 8:16 pm, "njdilettante" njdilettante@ .com wrote:
This is our first winter in a beautiful 200+ year old house. Unfortunately,
we've already found that the basement is by far the warmest part of the
place! The steam furnace is fairly new (about 5 years), but almost all the
steam pipes running through the basement are bare.

Rather than moving the family down to the basement until spring, I'd like to
insulate the exposed steam pipes. They're definitely iron (some are
rusting), and range about 4-6" in diameter. I made a trip to the box stores
and saw several types of insulation with varying prices.

I don't want to assume that expensive is best, so I'd appreciate some
recommendations.

Thanks ---