Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 02:44:58 +0200
Reply-To: Robert Steven Fish <fish@SALZBURG.CO.AT>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Robert Steven Fish <fish@SALZBURG.CO.AT>
Subject: NVC: What is inside of a Radiator??
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Hi all,
Since I just bought this old house (built in 1952) I have been discovering
the most amazing things.
From lead pipes to electric wiring with no ground, to coffee cans in the
walls (apparently post war houses here were built with whatever they could
lay their hands on... and sometimes they just filled up coffee cans with
gravel and used them as bricks!!)
Anyway... I have been bringing my Vanagon over to the new place pretty much
everyday. Today I drained the heating system, which is a bunch of cast iron
radiators, connected to a central water cooker in the basement.
When I took each radiator off, I empied what was left inside of it out into
a bucket. The most amazing black slime came out... and it stank like
heating oil, or some other nasty petroleum product.
Now that got me to thinking... what is in a radiator anyway?? In a Vanagon
you could put just plain old tap water, but you would get tons of rust and
corrosion fast, not to mention mineral deposits.
In a house I would have thought that you would have pure water in the
system.... but alas, the same thing would happen... right? But if you have
oil in your Vanagon radiator fluid... that is a rather bad sign and means
that two fluids which are not normally meant to ever mingle... have
miingled. Is this the same with my house radiator, which is a heating oil
powered creature, with water flowing through its veins?
So do those of you who remember old cast iron house radiators have any tips
and/or tricks for me?? After I flush all these radiators, and have them
painted with car enamel... I will have to fill them up again. Should I use
VW Blue RJ-11 (or whatever the PN is)??
Thanks. Since this is pretty much way off topic, please reply to me via
Fish-Mail, so we do not bore the other list members.
RSF
IMPORTANT!!! In order to reply to me, you must have the word "FISH"
somewhere in the subject line of the email. Otherwise it goes directly in
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<º)))>{ <º)))>{ <º)))>{ <º)))>{ <º)))>{ <º)))>{
Robert S. Fish
Andrae Dopplerweg 11
5071-Wals bei Salzburg
Austria, Europa
Tel +43 662 850617
Mobile 0676 749 7772
Fax +43 662 8492964
Yahoo! Messenger = robertstevenfish
AOL IM = robertstevenfish
