YouÂre not crazy and I can understand the desire for aesthetics and comfort. But be sure to understand that you cannot just install these in place of the fin tube if it was piped in a series loop. You see the first radiator will be hot and everyone after that colder and colder. The distribution system will need to be changed some like monoflo systems but the best way to do it and do it right is two-pipe reverse return. That way the first radiator on the supply is the last on return making the first on return the last one on the supply. This equals even flow at each radiator and allowing you to manually or thermostatically control each individual radiator with out affecting flow to others. In addition proper boiler piping such as primary/secondary may be required to eliminate condensing or shock depending on boiler model and design. Unless of course you invest in a good modulating condensing boiler which, loves cool water and saves money while offering even more comfort due to varying water temps based on outdoor temps.

Yes, appears to be communication issue with contractor. Contract says in open beams above garage which is basically half of the floor. At the time, I was not familiar with this type of system, so I had no clue what it even looked like, the contractor knew we wanted all of the walking areas heated since my first request was to use electric pads in the walking area and he talked me out of that and said just create a separate zone off of your furnace for the kitchen floor. Not a big deal to finish it, half of the remaining floor is open beams in laundry room, and the rest is in ceiling above a bathrrom which I'm fine with them taking out the ceiling and replacing with drywall.

I'm reading it, kats! I'm embarking on a two-pronged window project at my 108-year-old house. One part is restoring and repairing the remaining original windows. Most of them are in perfectly good condition, but entombed in paint and caulk and missing their cords. Nothing we can't fix. A couple are rotten beyond repair, but our local wood window guy can replicate them. The other (and very expensive) part is is replacing the horrible vinyl replacement windows with proper wood windows (by the same guy - his workshop's whole business is building old style wood windows for historic/old buildings). Oh, and then the side project is commissioning a stained glass guy to make us new transom panes and landing window, as all the stained glass was stripped from this house long ago. That'll be once I've saved for a decade or won the lottery. I hope to have window and interior trim restoration done before we start a family, but I bought myself a very nice respirator. I'll say this about old windows - there are few things more satisfying than opening a giant and heavy yet perfectly balanced hung window sash with a single finger. It is the most epic manifestation of man's mastery of the concept leverage and the invention of the pulley. You can't do that with vinyl replacements. maifleur01 , it's important to know that the buyers of old houses (specifically those who buy old houses BECAUSE they are old houses) have different standards and "checklists" from typical buyers. Things that are attractive (or non-issues) in a typical contemporary house become massive detractors in an old house. Modern replacement windows are a big one, also updated layouts (especially newfangled open ones), new (replacement) finishes, carpet, "updated" forced air heating systems (forced air is LESS EFFICIENT than hot water radiators, did you know?), addition of anachronistic details like can lights and other silliness, etc. I see updated modern kitchens and bathrooms in old houses as a neutral, because while it's nice to have a decent kitchen and bathroom in the meantime, I'm going to tear them out anyway and redo them to match the house better (out of all the Victorians and Craftsmans we looked at, I did not see a single kitchen, newly done or falling apart, that I liked or felt was appropriate for the house. If you're a seller, you might as well spare yourself the cash and headache. There are a bunch of dumb shoddy things the previous owner of my house did to put it on the market, like paint the rooms dumb trendy colors, that we are systematically undoing. Luckily she didn't do anything beyond superficial "improvements". At the end of the day, less is better. Us old house buyers tend to be fixer upper types, so I'd rather fix an old house in an unadulterated state than fix an old house that's been remuddled and mucked up, because after I rip out all the dumb changes put in to make the house "more appealing" on the market, then I still have to fix an old house anyway.

My house is 1260 square feet on two floors, with another 630 square feet in the basement. There are four radiators for each floor, and a gas-fired boiler in the basement. The basement has no radiators, but I have three manifold ports open for future expansion. I ran Everhot oxygen barrier PEX, but left the iron pipe sections running down to the basement and put PEX adapters on the end of each down-pipe. From there I ran the PEX to a manifold like one of these https://www.pexuniverse.com/radiant-heat-manifolds.  The manifold has individual flow meters and a balancing valve for each line. IIRC you can also buy an electrically operated balancing valve that could be turned on and off to zone the system. I put the two manifolds near the boiler, which was in one corner of the house. That meant some fairly long PEX runs to get to the other corner of the house. I also had to dip the PEX runs down low enough to get under the steel beam in the basement, so they are a bit curvy in that area. However, it went in with no problems. I can go to the PEX manifolds in the basement and see the input and return water temps for each manifold. I can also see the flow rate of the water running to each radiator. One surprise for the balancing valves is that they do not completely close off the flow, so you can't use them to completely shut off water to a radiator. That would have been convenient if I have to do work on one radiator. I had to install caps on the unused ports to completely cut off the flow. FYI - I installed the manifolds (referenced in my link above) upside down because all my radiators were above the manifold and that made the routing easier. It all works fine that way, except the labels and temp gauges are upside down. Bruce