Replacing radiator panels

[roman-bytes]

I’m looking to replace the panels on the front of my radiator. How do people usually do this? I’m trying to save money, so I was thinking of ordering some custom-size perforated metal sheets and drilling them to the front. Is that a decent idea, or is there a better way?

 

[havasu]

Salvage yard? Maybe ask a professional in your area to see if they know where to find a set of used panels?

 

[Mitchell-DIY-Guy]

If you look carefully at that front louvered panel, @roman-bytes you'll note the louvers are designed to flow air IN the bottom set, and OUT the top set, kind of very slow convection air flow.

If I am not mistaken, however, those are not part of the radiator (I could be wrong!) but are part of a radiator COVER. In areas with these old systems (radiators in NYC typically were steam) there were plenty of firms selling radiator covers. I used to live in NY and there were ads for them all the time in the papers so people could cover up an old ugly radiator like this:


and instead make it look like this:


If you just go to any search engine, type in "radiator cover" or "steam radiator cover" and go to images you'll find a whole selection of great ideas you could create yourself. Believe it or not, Amazon also has a ton of them for sale. Just search for radiator covers.