There exist basically two types of apartments in New York in the winter—ones that are freezing, and ones that resemble the inside of a toaster oven. It's hard to know which is more unbearable—would you prefer to spend your nights hallucinating that you are wandering the surface of the sun, or do you enjoy ice skating across your floor first thing in the morning? Then, of course, there's the banging and clanging, a cacophony John Del Signore likened to a "nightly Phillip Glass symphony on PCP." Why are your radiators so awful, and what do you do about them? Here are some tips that will hopefully keep you from killing your landlord in a heat rage.
I have steam heat, and it's TOO FUCKING HOT. What do I do?: An overheated room is pretty unbearable. The best thing to do, unfortunately, is to invest in a fan and open a window—it turns out these heaters were actually meant to force you to usher fresh air into your room, since they were widely implemented back when the Spanish flu was airborne.
According to CityLab, another thing that helps is putting a towel over your radiator. I am very concerned about fire and balked at this initially, but apparently radiators never get hot enough to burn natural fibers like cotton or wool. CityLab also suggests sticking a piece of tape over the air vent to trap cool air inside the radiator, which keeps it from heating up.
If your building allows it, you can also get a thermostatic valve installed—this allows you to control the temperature in your apartment by changing the flow of hot water.
What you should not do is turn the radiator valve off, which is a terrible mistake I made. If the valve is off or partially off, it can accumulate steam and destroy the air valve, which can then cause your radiator to leak. It turns out landlords are not happy about this kind of thing—if you simply CANNOT handle how goddamn hot your radiator is, make sure the valve is off and stays off before your building's heat gets turned on.
The heat is drying out everything in my body. HELP ME BEFORE MY NOSE BLEEDS OUT. Dry radiator air is bad news bears, and if you find yourself hacking, dehydrated, or suffering from nosebleeds, you might want to spring for a humidifier. The Pure Guardian Ultrasonic will set you back about $140, but it's really easy to clean and will spare you a lot of suffering.
A less expensive trick is to put a wet towel over your radiator, which will also get some moisture into the air.
I've been getting about three hours of sleep at night thanks to the melodious clanging and deafening hissing coming from that satanic metal beast in the corner. How do I get them to shut up?
There are a bunch of reasons radiator pipes make so much noise, and if it's banging and clanking like hell, there's a good chance you've got steam trapped in the pipes. Sometimes you've caused this problem yourself (DON'T SHUT OFF THE VALVE), and sometimes it's thanks to years of pipe-cleaning neglect on your landlord's part. Sometimes you can fix this by shimming up one end of the radiator, sending the water back towards the boiler.
A squeaking, whistling radiator is a good indicator that your air vent is shot. You can replace this yourself, but it's probably safer to let your landlord know so he can call in a pro/that cousin of his who fixed a radiator one time.
Otherwise, downloading a noise machine app isn't a terrible idea—I use SimplyNoise, which is free and allows me to fall asleep to the dulcet tones of brown wash.
A mouse lives inside my radiator, and it's so hot now he wants to come out and play!Steel wool, baby.
I AM SO COLD HELP ME. Your landlord is required by law to provide heat when the temperature falls below 55 degrees between October 1st and May 31st, but if you live on a higher floor, you might be getting the shaft. You can ask your landlord to turn up your building's heat, though your downstairs neighbors will probably melt—you can also invest in a (very good!) space heater (but be careful), keep hot water bottles around, or find a significant other to keep you warm until you can dump him in the springtime.
