There are air vent on the end of the radiator. If you do a goggle on maid o mist. you will find that each radiator gets a different vent according to the distance from the boiler................. you could try getting an adjustable vent for that one radiator and closing it. adjusting these vents can be tricky and getting them all to correspond to the same heat pattern at the same time can be a little tricky. if you can draw a floor plan with the piping length and size of piping to each radiator and size of room and how many Btu's the boiler is. then bring it to a heating/ plumbing supply house and talk to someone behind a desk. they may be able to tell you what You need and if they feel it may be to tricky for you as a homeowner they will set you up with a local guy hats good with steam and be able to balance your house out evenly. once again its kinda tricky but can be done. I would stay with the radiator and either by the right size one or paint the old one so it looks nice. It does add class to a room. Especially with a new shut off valve.

Hi, I know it's been 8 months since you folks were discussing this, but hopefully one of you who seems to know these systems and their components will happen to see this follow-up --- your discussion was the best I've seen, and I'm hoping one of you can offer some ideas about my gurgling system. I've bled all three loops in my system, both by doing what one plumber who worked on the system a few years ago called a "power purge" (hook up a garden hose to the drain valve for each loop and let water flow at full volume through the loop until the water flows smoothly, i.e. no more sputters) as well as using the bleeder valves in each loop. When I use the bleeders, no air sputters out, making me think I have all the air out of the loops. But when the pump first kicks on in the morning, you'd think we were in a sub filling our dive chambers. The sound of water flowing in the pipes sounds like the system is empty and being charged. The system did not have this problem last winter, but I drained it recently because I moved one of the baseboard radiators. Having read all the earlier comments in this thread, I have an idea I'd like to run past people, but of course, I'm open to anything else anyone has to offer. As it is, my Extrol is installed at the end of a dead end extension, contrary to the installation guidelines printed on the label. The reason I initially doubted that that's the problem is that the Extrol was that way last winter and the system was fine. However, the one possibility I'm wondering about is whether, when I drained the system a few weeks ago, too much air got up in the pipe that leads up to the Extrol, causing something like this to happen: after the system has been on a while, the air compresses up in the pipe that leads to the Extrol, and the system quiets down, but when the system is off for a while and the pressure in the system drops (because the boiler's not firing, i.e. overnight when we turn down the heat), the air de-compresses and pushes back down into the feed to the loops, thus causing a significant amount of gurgling when the pump first starts to push water through the loops; once the air has circulated back around to the tee that leads to the Extrol, the air is eventually all captured back up in the Extrol (and the pipe leading to it) and stays compressed there until the system pressure drops low enough to allow it back out of the pipe into the circulation feed. Sounds completely whacked, I know, but I'm at a loss for how the bleeders can stream completely air-free water, i.e. no sputters whatsoever, but every morning, it sounds like there are huge air pockets in the pipes getting pushed room by room through the loop --- and then it stops. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks, Mark

You might consider mini-split ductless heat pumps. Mitsubishi and Fujitsu sell some awesome units that are practically as efficient as geothermal systems and can put out usable heat to quite cold temperatures. Use these as primary heat and replace the baseboards with cheap units for backup, but only turn them on when absolutely necessary. Doing this, you'll drop your heating costs at least in half, more likely in third and you'll get air conditioning for those few humid, nasty days you might have. Electric baseboards are dirt cheap and easy to install. The technology behind them is trivial, so it's not worth spending more for anything fancy. For example: http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/HeatingProducts/heatingunits/electrical/qmark/qmarkbaseboard220buy.asp

I have used just plain old spray paint and it has held up very well. I used a matte finish. I taped paper or cardboard against the wall and sprayed for the piece that I could not remove. The other removable pieces I took into the garage and sprayed them there. It came out beautiful.