apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I like this, it makes me giggle.

When my Mom & Dad were first married...their oven broke in the middle of making a pot roast. My Mom "slow cooked" it on the radiator. For 35 years my Dad still remembered that pot roast - said it was the best he ever had.

Smart & creative, but I am guessing not practical to mass produce because of the variety of types of old radiators out there. Maybe if those nubs on the bottom were somehow adjustable inside of little tracks or something.

That must be one damn clean radiator.

I love love love this. I want one so badly!

Make it yourself with a baking cooling rack.

For Christmas someone gave me a mug warmed that you plug in. I generally despise appliances but like warm coffee. THIS, is a BRILLIANT idea, esp in NYC where my radiator emits so much heat that I feel it's a waste. I LOVE this. I'm def going ot try the baking cooling rack idea.

elgrabo, I hear ya! Last night, I literally thought I was going to pass out from all of the heat in my apartment. Crazy! Even opening the kitchen window offered little relief. The way these NYC buildings are uber-heated these days is just beyond ridiculous.

my radiator is too big for my room, I've always wanted to buy a smaller cute one (is that allowed when you rent???) that didn't overheat (and overwhelm in size) the place. But I love the idea of this ... yet another cute gadget to fall in love with!

Genious!! I'm always leaving my tea on the radiator, but I imagine a ceramic tray would conduct or retain the heat much better.

I read in "This Old House" magazine a while back that old buildings were intended to be hot. The thought at the turn of the century was that stale air was not healthy and caused all sorts of ailments including tuberculosis. So they were sized thinking that your windows were to be left open. Not sure if this is an urban legend but it was in print so it must be true.

It's not entirely an urban legend -- health reformers of the mid-19th century were constantly urging people to sleep with their windows open, and there are numerous casual mentions in both literature and biographies of people who did. And fresh air was certainly touted as a cure for tuberculosis.

On the other hand, it's also possible that building supervisors today just don't know the trick to balancing the system's load. We've never had an old building be torridly hot when we had control of the thermostat, so they don't have to run hot.

In my building - we've been told it is an all or nothing. You can change the timing and thermostat control of when it is on, but the system needs to maintain a certain amount of pressure when it is operating - which for me is hot - hot - hot.

Hmmmm. I think they're lying to you, David! I own (and live in) an 1890's rowhouse heated with cast iron steam radiators, and I never let the heat go above 65 degrees in the winter (usually I keep it even lower). I set the thermostat where it needs to be, and the boiler simply shuts off when the temperature reaches that point. Of course the radiators themselves retain and radiate heat for some time afterwards (that's part of the reason why cast iron radiators are so efficient, especially in old houses with small rooms), but I've never had a problem keeping the temperature at a low, even level.

Now, when I rented an apartment in a brownstone, that was an entirely different story!! I think they just like to keep the heat high high high to avoid having any one tenant complain about being cold. I'm convinced that the thermostat in my apartment wasn't actually connected to anything. ;)

All heating and cooling systems are either all or nothing. That is how they operate. The only way the ambient temperature of the room is maintained is by turning the system on and off.

I have a DIY version of this tray using 3" marble floor thresholds from the hardware store. They cost about $5. They don't have the little ridges but they stay put anyway. And, yes, they do keep your cup of coffee deliciously warm!

There's kind of a lot of different shapes and sizes of radiators in the city, and the distance between the "ribs" of them is kind of varying, so I'd think these might not work on all of them, but they do seem like a nice idea. My radiators have original built-in covers on them, so I just leave them like they were.