After remaining for years unchanged as an object of often garish and commonplace appearance, the radiator now is yielding to the artist's touch, like all our household furnishings.

Radiator covers to protect walls and curtains from dust, as well as to beautify the appearance of the heating coils, have come into common use. Recesses sometimes are left in the walls for the radiators so that they can be wholly or partially concealed; and in some new houses built-in radiators are provided. In finishing radiators when they are exposed to view, color combinations are being used to harmonize with the general decorative scheme.

If the proper colors and types of finishes are chosen it is now possible, because of researches which have been conducted by engineering societies and universities, to save many dollars in your coal bills. That is because you can choose a type of finish that will cause practically no impairment in the radiation of heat as compared to other finishes which may retard radiation as much as fifteen per cent.

By refinishing radiators before the fire is started for the coming winter, the home owner can improve the appearance of his rooms with very little effort and at small cost. The essential idea is to make the radiators less conspicuous. This is accomplished by using colors that blend with the background. In certain cases, however, a necessary accent in a room can be obtained by decorating the radiator in contrasting color. When a wall of plain color constitutes the background, the color may be matched with flat wall paint.

Fig. 21. - Radiators are now decorated to harmonize with their surroundings. A good time to refinish them is before the fall fire is started. At right : Applying a stippled coat with a sponge to match a so-called Tiffany finished or mottled wall.

For radiators that stand in front of paneled woodwork in enamel finish, enamel of the same color can be used and a touch of contrasting color applied to the ornamental embossing with a camel's-hair pencil brush. If a good match cannot be obtained in standard shades of wall paint or enamel, you can use oil colors, which come in tubes or small cans especially for tinting purposes, to tint a standard shade until it does match. Your dealer will tell you the proper tinting color to use, and by experimenting with small quantities you can mix the color you need.

If the wall decoration is wall paper of a pronounced pattern or paint-stippled or Tiffany two-tone blended effects, the ideal treatment for the radiator is stippling (Fig. 21). This will harmonize with the background perfectly.

The first step is to make sure that the radiators are in good condition for repainting. They must be thoroughly clean and free from grease and dust. Wash them with soap and water. Clean any greasy spots with gasoline, and scrape and sandpaper all scaling or rusty places.

If the radiators happen to be new and never have been painted, or if the finish is in a very bad condition, apply a priming coat of red lead-in-oil and boiled linseed oil, or other rust-inhibitive metal paint.

Give the radiator two solid covering coats of flat wall paint of the desired foundation color. The stippling then may be done in two ways.

The simplest method is to apply the color with a sponge cut across the grain to give a good painting surface. Pour some of the stippling color on a board or a piece of paper, dip the sponge into the color, tap it out two or three times on a piece of paper to remove the excess paint, then pat it straight onto the radiator without twisting or turning. Reload the sponge with color and continue the process until the entire surface has been covered. When the paint is dry, a second and even a third stippling color may be applied in the same way. The sponge should be washed out in gasoline and thoroughly cleaned with soap and warm water after it has been used with each color.

The other method of applying the stippling color is often termed polychroming. After the foundation coats have been applied, the stippling color is brushed on and worked into the scrolls and embossing of the radiator. Then it is wiped from the high spots with a cloth so that in some places only the foundation coat is seen, in others only the stippling coat, and in others a blend of the two.

For this work oil colors or specially prepared glazing or mottling colors, thinned with glazing liquid or flatting oil, are most satisfactory. The advantage of the prepared glazes is that they do not set up as rapidly as turpentine, and speed in handling them is not so necessary. The strength of the colors may be governed by varying the proportions of the thinner. In no case should too much surface be coated with a stippling color before the wiping off or mottling is done.

Two- or three-tone effects may be produced by spotting on two or three different colors at the same time and then blending them together with a stippling 'cloth. The mixtures must be prepared in separate containers and put on with separate brushes. This treatment is, of course, especially suited where the wall decoration is Tiffany paint stippling; it goes well with mottled and blended wall papers and the new plastic wall paint finishes.

Fig. 22. - Flat-drying paint of the kind often used for walls is ideal for decorating the radiator coils.

The highest efficiency in radiation is obtained with flat paints and enamels (Fig. 22). There appears to be a very slight advantage in favor of the flat finishes over the enamels. Gold, bronze, and aluminum finishes (flake metal finishes) have been shown to be less efficient when applied to radiators because the surface does not dissipate the heat into the room as rapidly as it is transmitted through the metal of the coils. That does not mean that the metallic finishes must be removed from the radiator in order to allow it to release the maximum amount of heat. If coated over with any good paint or enamel, the surface will not retard the heat and the efficiency will be increased. The improvement will be from nine to (in a few special cases) eighteen per cent, according to comparative tests of radiator finishes reported by William H. Severns, of the University of Illinois, in the "Journal of the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers."

Fig. 23. - With a sprayer, whether hand, foot, or motor-driven, it is easy to finish radiators.

The new brushing lacquers also are of high efficiency in respect to the radiation of heat. They are very nearly the equal of flat wall paint; and, like it, they will withstand the heat to which radiators are subjected.

The hand, foot, electric and vacuum-cleaner paint sprayers now so common are especially adapted for use in finishing radiators, which have so many irregular surfaces and hard-to-get-at places. The wall behind and the floor beneath, of course, must be thoroughly covered, and the painting material has to be used in a thinner consistency than for brush coating (Fig. 23).

After being decorated, the radiators should be warmed up slowly the first time they are used to allow the finish to bake slowly on the surface.