Radiator smells of cigarette smoke

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Not sure if this is the best forum, but… when I moved into this house a couple of years ago, the living room smelt of stale fag smoke. Scrubbed everything, repainted etc, smell gone. Except… when it’s cold and the heating comes on, sometimes a bit of the smell comes back, so I’m assuming there’s some down inside the rads.

They’re this type – is there any sensible way of washing inside them, or am I going to have to get new ones?

Thanks :D

20190922_234024[1].jpg
 
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to do it effectively, I think you will have to dismount it from the valves and take into the garden.

You can then wash it down with Flash or other strong household detergent, perhaps using a garden sprayer to get it down all the channels, and a long brush to scrub away the tarry deposits.

You can then clean the the paint with a green nylon scourer, and maybe rub down the paint with 600 fine wet and dry paper, taking off any rust marks with that or a brass (not steel) wire brush.

Then rinse with clean water and dry quickly by leaving it in the sun (they are made of steel which will rust if left wet).

Then I'd wipe it with white spirit and touch up all the bare and formerly rusty patches with a metal primer (spirit based) and give it a coat of emulsion or satinwood to tone with the wall (do the front face last).

Bish bosh, back on the wall, should look smart and not smell.

You don't have to repaint it, but the day you take it off the wall to clean will be the easiest bit of radiator painting in your life because you can prop it on a trestle or something to work on.
 
to do it effectively, I think you will have to dismount it from the valves and take into the garden.

Thanks for all that, John - but the rads are vintage 1994, and I suspect, if I have to put that amount of work into them, I'd be tempted to just replace them :D
 
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but you'll need a detergent, and the strong detergent and tar will splash onto the wall and floor, and continue to smell, unless you rinse away every scrap.

hence the garden idea.
 
Not sure if this is the best forum, but… when I moved into this house a couple of years ago, the living room smelt of stale fag smoke. Scrubbed everything, repainted etc, smell gone. Except… when it’s cold and the heating comes on, sometimes a bit of the smell comes back, so I’m assuming there’s some down inside the rads.

They’re this type – is there any sensible way of washing inside them, or am I going to have to get new ones?

Thanks :D

View attachment 171820
Horrible ugly rads - look @ the modern ones - enammeled in the factory and fitted with top grills and side covers. Those things are smelly scrap;)
 
Won't a 1994 radiator still be imperial rather than metric? We had our rads fitted in 1997. Recently, one of them sprung a leak at the back. The nearest sized rad in the local plumber's merchant was 10cm shorter than the old imperial one.

Annoyingly, it sprung the leak 2 months after the new Amtico floor had been laid. I had to use a heat gun to lift some of the Amtico and then use a multitool to cut through the plywood and floorboards so that I would move the pipe tail over.
 
Won't a 1994 radiator still be imperial rather than metric?

Ummm… looks like it. I measured them, and they’re 3’0” & 3’6”.

Annoyingly, it sprung the leak 2 months after the new Amtico floor had been laid. I had to use a heat gun to lift some of the Amtico and then use a multitool to cut through the plywood and floorboards so that I would move the pipe tail over.

Worse than that here – concrete floors :mad:
 

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